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AVENGERS: Custody War – Disney & Universal’s Co-Parenting Plans for MARVEL Super Heroes

“Avengers… Assemble!” Well… if only it were that easy.

Forget Thor and Loki; Wanda and Agatha; Iron Man and Thanos. When it comes to Marvel superheroes, one of the most cosmic clashes of all time isn’t been heroes and villains at all. Instead, it’s between two entertainment titans engaged in a decades-long war over control of Central Florida, now embroiled in an unlikely custody battle over a teenager from Brooklyn… with web-slinging powers.

For those outside theme park fandom, it’s one of the oddest bits of “fine print” in modern pop culture: that somehow, despite Disney’s $4 billion purchase of Marvel outright in 2009, the company is forbidden from using its own heroes at its flagship resort. To make matters worse, not only is Disney practically powerless in leveraging its pop-culture-dominating IP in its own theme parks, but those heroes have somehow been ceded to their comic-book-esque archnemesis just a few miles north.

So how can Universal hold Spider-Man hostage? What’s the legal asterisk that explains the slow drip of Marvel heroes into Disney Parks across the globe… including Florida? What does the future hold for Disney and Universal’s uneasy co-parenting of Marvel heroes in theme parks? Like all custody battles, it’s… complicated. So we may as well start at the beginning…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Gold and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Gold and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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10 “Off-The-Beaten-Path,” World-Building Secret Spots and Design Details at Islands of Adventure

There was a time when Disney was Disney, and Universal was Universal.

Then, Islands of Adventure changed everything. Opening in 1999, the much-heralded second gate at the redesignated Universal Orlando Resort at last dispensed with “beige backlots” and “boxy soundstages” in favor of a park built using Disney’s own formula… with a dash of something twenty-first century.

Simultaneously the most and least “Disney” park since Disneyland itself, Islands of Adventure was a mould-breaker. Eschewing blockbuster movies to instead bring to life timeless, intergenerational stories; building unheard-of, IP-centered lands; co-mixing immersive environments with bare steel coasters; brandishing technology as a weapon in the theme park wars, and embedding it in next-century dark rides and shows…. This park was often big, loud, fast, vibrant, and in-your-face.

Image: Universal

Except when it wasn’t… After all, Islands of Adventure opened with Universal’s first seeming intentional investment in the unsung heroes of theme park lineups: hidden gems. In our recent look at the kinds of rides Universal should pluck from Disney’s playbook, we highlighted hidden gems as a particularly important element of parks – the kinds of experiences that reward exploration and build-out both a park’s capacity and its mythologies.

So today, we’ll take a tour around the exceptional stories of Islands of Adventure to highlight some of those “secret spots” or thoughtful design details; the kinds of attractions, nooks and crannies, and unexpected surprises you can only find between E-Tickets. We hope you’ll have at least one item to add to your Islands of Adventure “scavenger hunt” after reading about these off-the-beaten-path extras…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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Good Movie, “Bad” Ride: 8 Iconic Films Whose Spirits Were Lost in Translation to Theme Parks

Whether you like it or not, Disney and Universal Parks have evolved. Since at least the 1990s, theme parks M.O.s have been shifting from places to “Ride the Movies” aboard Modern Marvels: Star Tours, Indiana Jones Adventure, and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror to today’s immersive lands where you can “Live the Movies” by stepping into Hogsmeade, Pandora, Springfield, Radiator Springs, Batuu, or Avengers Campus. 

Both Disney and Universal tend to be pretty picky about the films that are afforded permanent, expensive attractions inside their parks… No one wants a ride themed to a box office bomb, after all… However, just because you pick a good, revered, classic, or award-winning movie, you’re not guaranteed a good, revered, classic, or award-winning ride will come out the other end. Here’s our short collection of eight really good movies that somehow got lost in translation, turning into rides that just don’t live up to the film’s legacy.

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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“Which, Where, How, and When?” – Quality Control Questions to Guide IP-in-the-Parks

If you’ve been around the Disney Parks fan community long enough, you’ve no doubt taken sides in a whole lot of well-meaning debates… Management, beards, “political correctness,” tattoos, screens… Fans are always taking sides and talking about something.

But in the last decade, there’s been one debate that serves as a pretty continuous undercurrent to discussions around Disney Parks: the use of IP, or intellectual property – licensed, owned, or acquired brands, movies, characters, stories, and settings. Recently, a Twitter user raised the question directly:

“I have a serious question… Why do so many people hate IP in the parks? Like for real?” Image: Twitter

It’s a great question to ask! After all, if you spend time scouring #Distwitter or Disney Parks social media groups, you’ll undoubtedly see a lot of pushback against Disney Parks projects based on big IPs, which, admittedly, in the last two decades have accounted for… well… almost every Disney Parks project. Seriously. As part of our Member-exclusive Extra Features, we figured out each Disney Parks’ most recent, major, IP-free attraction, and the results were… pretty startling.

Of course, IP has been a part of Disneyland since its 1955 opening, and many of the park’s most beloved attractions are based on films – sometimes, films that didn’t even belong to Disney! So even the most fervent fans can’t possibly “hate IP in the parks.” Rather, it has to be a case of debating which, where, how, and when IP is used… And to help us weed out the good from the bad, we propose four questions Imagineers should ask themselves before permanently planting an intellectual property into Disney Parks. 

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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Avengersland, Assembled! What To Expect (and What Not To) When You Step Into Disney’s First Super-Land

Just how big is the Marvel Cinematic Universe? To put it in terms Disney executives would understand: the first twenty-four films of the franchise have earned $23 billion in box office receipts alone… yes, an average of nearly one billion dollars each. Though the MCU is only halfway to earning the total haul of the Star Wars franchise (in a quarter the time, mind you), the MCU shows no sign whatsoever of slowing down. Disney’s MCU has become one of the dominating pop culture IPs of the 21st century.

Given that, you’d probably expect that Disney’s gone big and worked fast to incorporate its hot, blockbuster catalogue of heroic characters into Disney Parks; that Marvel has been granted at least the kind of permanence, scale, and scope as Star Wars. 

The truth is a little less heroic. Disney’s been really slow to add Marvel characters into its theme parks. Part of that is no doubt thanks to the uneasy legal arrangement Disney inherited in Florida, which precludes the company from using many of its highest-earning heroes in its flagship resort. Even as their blockbuster films came and went, most heroes were relegated to meet-and-greets in California, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Then, the plan started to become clear… And now, Avengers Campus is here… 

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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“Wood” Dollywood’s Lightning Rod of a Controversial Coaster Be the World’s First True Wood-Steel Hybrid?

Modern wooden roller coasters unofficially date back to France the early 19th century when “Russian mountains” became sophisticated enough to see wheeled carts hoisted to the top of ramps and released along controlled dips. The oldest operating example of a wooden roller coaster today dates to 1902 in Altoona, Pennsylvania. And since then, wooden coasters have largely…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.

This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.

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Wonders of the Wand: 8 Incredible Incantations (and 2 Secret Spells) Within the Wizarding World

For fans of themed entertainment design, time might as well be measured in years A.P. – After Potter. After all, the 2010 opening of the Wizarding World’s first half (Hogsmeade at Universal’s Islands of Adventure) reset the rules of theme park expansions, officially replacing the era of the E-Ticket with the age of the “Living Land.” Thanks to the Wizarding World, guests didn’t just want to “ride the movies;” they wanted to shop where their favorite characters shop; to eat where they eat; to step where they step!

Image: Universal via WizardingWorldPark.com

So when the Wizarding World’s second half (Diagon Alley at Universal Studios Florida) debuted in 2014, it brought with it the next leap for designers seeking “in-universe” souvenirs: the interactive Wand. Guests (literally) lined up to fork over Muggle dollars for wands capable of bringing Diagon Alley’s windows to life, quickly leading to the ret-conning of simpler effects back in the original Hogsmeade. Today, more than two dozen spells dot the two lands of the Wizarding World, but we’ve collected eight of our favorites… and two totally-unmarked secret spells you may not even have known exist… 

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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Potter… Nintendo… Star Wars… WHAT’S LEFT?! 12 Untapped IPs Perfect for Theme Park Lands

For at least the last few decades, multimedia companies like Disney, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, and WarnerMedia have been engaged in an all-out war. The goal? Purchasing, licensing, conglomerating, trading, and protecting the most precious resource of the 21st century: intellectual property. In fact, one of Park Lore’s recent Extra Features took a look at 9 surprising IPs that are now officially Disney’s thanks to its acquisition of 20th Century Fox!

But away from the studio, one battlefront in the ongoing IP War has been Disney and Universal’s respective theme parks, where a new era of “Living Lands” has plucked places right from the highest-earning franchises in history like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney Princesses to go head-to-head in billion-dollar theme park projects.

A few years ago – after so many major acquisitions – we might’ve wondered aloud, “What’s left?!” Then came Nintendo. How had we missed it?! Nintendo was the kind of integenerational, widely-recognized, timeless brand and character catalogue few movies can match. It’s perfect for creating an immersive world. And of course, it doesn’t hurt that between Mario and Donkey Kong alone, Nintendo’s top two franchises have amassed $40 billion in revenue (more than the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe)…

The surprising coup of Nintendo has left lots of theme park fans wondering aloud, “What else have we missed?” and more importantly…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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“The Park Formerly Known As…”: 6 Old Names and Retired Logos from Disney & Universal’s Theme Park Archives

The best theme parks are timeless. Their names and logos? Not always.

Even though so many of Disney and Universal’s theme parks are time capsules, carrying hundreds of years of history between them. Though they may feel like they’ve been around forever, each Disney theme park on Earth is really the product of the time it’s designed in. Colors, typefaces, and even names that makes sense one year may look outdated the next. From time to time, Disney recognizes that it’s time to update the branding of their parks, or even rename parks altogether. 

For fans like us, that creates a visual timeline to look back on, seeing the ways Disney Parks have changed by looking at how their names and logos shift! Take a look at the six cases below where major reinventions and surprising name-changes have changed Disney Parks history. 

Continue reading ““The Park Formerly Known As…”: 6 Old Names and Retired Logos from Disney & Universal’s Theme Park Archives”
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WHAT IF… Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Entered the Twilight Zone? An Armchair Imagineering Pitch

Every day at Walt Disney Imagineering, designers ask themselves and each other the same question: “What if?” In the so-called “Blue Sky” phase of design, there’s no limit; no capacity; no technology; no budget. The idea is to dream big and let reality hem in the project’s scope later. In this new monthly Park Lore Possibilityland mini-series, we invite you to “Blue Sky” with us, and to reimagine a ride that could use a refresh.

This time, it’s all about Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, an unusually-aged leftover of another era at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Check out our solution for this could-be classic, then submit your own!

And before we head off, remember that you can unlock rare concept art and audio streams in this story, access over 100 Extra Features, and recieve an annual Membership card and postcard art set in the mail by supporting this clickbait-free, in-depth, ad-free theme park storytelling site for as little as $2 / month! Become a Park Lore Member to join the story! Until then, let’s start at the beginning…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


Log In or Join Now

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