Marvel Studios President and Marvel Chief Creative Officer Kevin Feige, producer and architect of the 23-movie Marvel Cinematic Universe, says Avengers Campus at the Disneyland Resort is “absolutely the next progression” of Marvel superhero storytelling. The first interconnected feat from Walt Disney Imagineering, telling one story spanning three Disney theme parks across the globe, Avengers Campus adopts Marvel Studios’ groundbreaking shared universe approach: it’s all connected. Taking place parallel to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in one of the infinite realities of the Marvel multiverse, Avengers Campus invites guests to join Earth’s mightiest heroes in a fully immersive land connected by an innovative narrative playing out through attractions, characters, food and merchandise.
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“Going to Disneyland, that’s what we did as a family, going on these amazing rides that promised a spectacular future ahead,” Feige said in a behind-the-scenes featurette screened during an Avengers Campus media preview attended by ComicBook.com. “The notion of having films that I was a part of brought to life is amazing.”
Added Bob Weis, President of Walt Disney Imagineering, “Take the incredible success of these movies and how those stories were told, with emotion, with action, with great characters, and imagine what an incredible gift it is for us to be able to have all that to create attractions. Imagine what an incredible responsibility it is.”
Weis and his team of Imagineers “have in their hands the capability of lifting our spirits, to take us to the place of dreaming, and the little kid in us can come out and play and be entertained,” said Marvel Studios Executive Vice President of Production Victoria Alonso, who has shepherded every Marvel Studios production alongside Feige.
Marvel Studios and Disney theme park creatives merged their talents to create the all-new land where the Avengers and their allies seek recruits of all ages.
“We’re working with not only just movie makers, but these guys are at the top of their game in the middle of an epic era of superhero films,” said Scot Drake, Portfolio Creative Executive, Walt Disney Imagineering. “This is challenging us to make sure that we’re raising our game as well.”
For Dave Bushore, Vice President, Franchise Creative & Marketing, Marvel Studios, the key to Avengers Campus was capturing how fans felt during iconic Marvel movie moments, including the Nick Fury post-credits scene in Iron Man and Captain America lifting Thor’s enchanted hammer Mjolnir in Avengers: Endgame.
“Being able to go to that place that you’ve always dreamed of, that is an unimaginably powerful thing because you don’t have to pretend anymore,” Bushore said. “You actually get to be there.” Added Alonso, “Having the door open where you can go to a park is one more extension of living the experience of being a superhero.”
Avengers Campus is “absolutely the next progression of telling these stories, of experiencing what it’s like to ride alongside these characters,” said Feige. “It could only be done in a Disney theme park attraction.”
To bridge the worlds of Marvel and Disney, Imagineers worked alongside “the best filmmakers, the best costume designers and storytellers, and putting those with the best engineers and designers at Imagineering that are making things that never would’ve been possible before this collaboration,” Drake said.
Following the additions of Iron Man Experience and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Nano Battle at Hong Kong Disneyland, future site of the third Avengers Campus, the land opening soon in California will host the all-new and exclusive WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure attraction.
“The films themselves take us all over the globe, all over the galaxy, and are only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Well, we have the opportunity to do that with our Avengers attractions,” noted Jillian Pagan, lead writer on Avengers Campus for Walt Disney Imagineering. “We started with our epic attractions in Hong Kong and now we’re going even bigger with them.”
Sitting atop Avengers Headquarters, where select members of the Avengers will do battle with the thieving Taskmaster, is the Avengers’ aircraft, the Quinjet, a sight sure to impress new recruits.
“The first time we saw the concept, it was like, ‘Oh yeah, that looks like the one in the movies. It’s going to be amazing, but like totally new,’” Bushore said. “The Quinjet is on top, and you’re like, ‘We’re going to build that. That’s going to be a real place.’”
Pagan hopes guests leave the optimistic and forward-looking land having “maybe discovered kind of a heroic spark within themselves.”
“That’s a very big deal, to go on an experience and get out and have your worldview shift,” added Feige. “That’s the best of what Imagineering can do, and I can’t wait to do it. I’ll be first in line.”
Avengers Campus opens this summer inside Disney California Adventure Park at the Disneyland Resort. Purchase tickets.
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Image Credit: Marvel Studios, Marvel Comics
