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Epcot needed a revamp. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy are here to save the day
The corporate is relying on a gaggle of intergalactic scoundrels to assist. “Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind,” a state-of-the-art indoor curler coaster that includes the favored superheroes who debuted within the 2014 movie, opened on the Florida theme park on Friday.
It isn’t simply any on a regular basis attraction. This coaster is vital to future-proofing Disney’s Parks enterprise.
Disney is incorporating a synergy technique with Marvel, one of many firm’s hottest movie manufacturers, to bolster a foundational a part of its enterprise because it updates one among its geekiest theme parks.
The technique
“Streaming offers Disney on a regular basis presence in its customers’ lives, however Parks offers Disney head house with these customers like no recorded media ever can,” Robert Niles, editor of ThemeParkInsider.com, instructed CNN Enterprise. “A parks or cruise go to turns into a lifelong reminiscence for hundreds of thousands of customers — one thing that drives a lifelong affinity for the Disney model.”
However the phase notched $6.6 billion in income on this 12 months’s fiscal second quarter — greater than double its gross sales from a 12 months in the past.
Now it is Epcot’s flip. Enter “Cosmic Rewind.”
The trip
Epcot presents different thrill rides like “Check Monitor,” nevertheless it’s by no means been thought of Disney World’s most thrilling resort. That distinction belongs extra to Hollywood Studios, its theme park with rides primarily based on Star Wars and The Twilight Zone.
In reality, the unique Epcot wasn’t alleged to be a theme park in any respect, however slightly Walt Disney’s deliberate futuristic neighborhood generally known as the “Experimental Prototype Neighborhood of Tomorrow.” Therefore the acronym.
Marvel is the largest title in leisure, and now Disney is utilizing it to spice up its resorts enterprise to draw households who might have discovered the earlier iteration of the park a bit, properly, boring.
Disney gave CNN Enterprise a primary take a look at the trip, and “Cosmic Rewind” is something however boring. The rotating curler coaster matches the enjoyable of the sequence, whose two films have made greater than $1.6 billion on the international field workplace.
In reality, it is much less of a trip and extra like dwelling in your personal Marvel movie.
Visitors are plunged right into a storyline that performs out from the second they get in line. As soon as they’re on board, the coaster weaves by means of a battle between the Guardians and a large projection of a Celestial house being set to hit songs like Earth, Wind & Hearth’s “September,” which matches the movie’s disco vibe.
That full immersion is precisely the purpose, in keeping with Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Merchandise. “We’re next-level storytelling the place our visitors will be capable to step into their favourite tales in all-new methods,” D’Amaro instructed CNN Enterprise.
“As Walt all the time stated, Epcot ought to all the time be in a state of turning into and it has by no means stayed the identical,” he added. “Our aims are to maintain this particular park vibrant, alive and nonetheless nostalgic, however prepared for the longer term.”