Speculation over location for Disneyland Star Wars attractions begins

Um.... Ok, I give up.

If I were DL I wouldn't be so afraid that a dark ride at Knott's or a Simpsons Land at Universal would steal my business. Harry Potter, however, is another matter and this article states its to open next year. They stress that Disney has about two years to leap ahead of the competition with whatever they're going to do and we all know Rome wasnt built in a day. Cars Land took how long to develop?

One interesting thing in the article was the acreage each California gate has left at their disposal and the regulations around how much can built in each park. I had no idea.

Imagineering creates a lot of work that never sees the light of day. I would think that rather shortly after Lucasfilm became a member of the Disney family Imagineering had people working on Star Wars concepts.

well.... in the author's defense:

Disney isn't adding any new rides this year. Yes, they are blowing the doors off with new Steven Davison productions (Fireworks, Night Parade and New World of Color show [with hardware upgrades]). So,

at almost $100 a day, there is a large population that will go to ONE park a year. In the local SoCal market, that is usually Disneyland, as Universal is often seen as the lesser value, or not the "repeatable" park. Now with the uprgrades over the last few years, including Minions, and now Springfield and Fast & Furious, they could see an uptick. Knott's is a $38 gate with easily avail discount tix. Anything they add gets local press, and Six Flags has received lots of press with Collossus (Closing, fire, rehab, etc).

So these parks aren't going to steal all of Disney's business, but in an "Off-year" ride wise, discretionary park visits could easily be siphoned off this year, and will most definitely be lost to Universal next year.

In this hyper competitive SoCal market, those visits are not the lower per cap spending Annual Passholders, but more likely the "once a year trip", if enough of those see value in the new additions elsewhere, that could have an impact on Disney. Especially since it will be two plus, maybe three years before any new hardware hits the Cal Parks. You run the risk of your guests finding value in the competition and then deciding, oh we'll wait until Star Wars to go back to Disney.

slithernoggin said:

I would think that rather shortly after Lucasfilm became a member of the Disney family Imagineering had people working on Star Wars concepts.

Apparently however lots of it was episode 4-6, and/or 1-3. Once 7-9 became real, that the decision was made to re-do, reimagine, thus more delay.