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20,000 Leagues

“We had a very big investment in Europe, and it's difficult to deal with. I don't know whether a private company can ever spend this kind of money."

These words, spoken by Disney's then-CEO Michael Eisner in January 1994, signaled the beginning of the end. EuroDisneyland (now Disneyland Paris) had opened to a resounding financial thud in 1992; overbuilt and undervalued by locals, hemmoraging money and embroiled in cultural controversy. After a period of growth, innovation, and sincere progress at Disney Parks across the globe, the outright financial failure of the Parisian park shook Eisner to his core. From that moment on, he systematically downsized or outright dropped any large-scale expansions happening at Disney Parks.

Across the world, budgets were slashed, maintenance was cut, and Eisner surrounded himself with penny-pinching executives who shaped Disney Parks, presiding over what many argue is the worst period in the parks’ history.

Of course, any Disney Parks fan will tell you that Disneyland Paris is an icon; a Mecca for themed entertainment enthusiasts. Somehow balancing the intimacy and detail of Disneyland with the scale and grandeur of Magic Kingdom, the Parisian park is – by far – the most beautiful Disneyland-style park on Earth.

Image: Disney

But we can’t help but feel that Paris’ much-touted 25th Anniversary celebration in summer 2017 was bittersweet… Because as we celebrated 25 years of Disneyland Paris, fans were also mourning the many projects, plans, and parks that were cancelled about 25 years ago because of it. Let’s take a look at the Cancellations, Closures, and Cop-Outs that emerged out of the French financial failure…

CANCELLATIONS

Michael Eisner’s first years with Disney had been marked by triumph after triumph as the new, young, vibrant CEO successfully turned around the company’s sagging live action films and rejuvenated its long-abandoned animation studios. Most bravely, though, Eisner set out to update and upgrade Disney’s theme parks that had stagnated in the 15 years since Walt’s death. He had ambitious and extravagant plans for exciting, cinematic expansions, new lands, and ambitious new parks. And when Paris plummeted, so did any hopes of these cancelled projects that never saw the light of day.

1. Tomorrowland 2055

Image: Disney

Location: Disneyland

By the early 1990s, the Tomorrowland Walt and his team had developed in 1967 was looking distinctly dated. Films like Blade Runner, Alien, and even Star Wars had recast the future in Americans’ pop culture consciousness into a dark, industrial world of glowing computer terminals, hissing steam, interstellar battles, and gritty urban landscapes. Walt’s optimistic, pastel “World on the Move” was moving out.

In its place would’ve risen Tomorrowland 2055, an ambitious intergalactic sci-fi space port of alien languages, neon signs, landed space crafts, and more, all wrapped into a single continuity connected to an alien race known as the Lightkeepers. We walked the road to this impossible tomorrow in a standalone, in-depth feature – Possibilityland: Tomorrowland 2055.

Image: Disney

A precursor to the comic book pulp serial New Tomorrowland that opened at Magic Kingdom in 1994, Disneyland’s new, custom-built Tomorrowland 2055 would’ve also marked the debut of Disney’s edgiest attraction ever, a Lost Legend: The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter (which will show up later on our list).

With Paris’ bank account tumbling, Eisner placed a stop order on Tomorrowland 2055 and instead decreed that Disneyland’s much-needed Tomorrowland renovation would need to be cheap. We’re talking dirt-cheap. We chronicled the unfortunate fall of the park’s Tomorrowland in its own in-depth entry, Disaster Files: The Rocket Rods and New Tomorrowland ’98, but in short, Disney Imagineers were forced to make due with a frazzled prototype thrill ride, a new 3D film, a copy of Epcot’s Innoventions, and lots and lots of brown paint to create a poor man’s version of Paris’ bronze-and-gold Discoveryland,  “double-dipping” by re-using Paris’ design and development funds.

2. Beastly Kingdom

Location: Disney's Animal Kingdom

When Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, it represented a rare victory in an era of cost cutting. The park was a triumph of themed entertainment, immersing guests into habitable, real worlds with unique animal experiences. One thing it did not have? Rides. The park opened with only four – two transportation rides, the terrifying Countdown to Extinction, and the headlining Kilimanjaro Safaris.

The solution to that problem was an incredible planned land that would’ve been an icon of Disney World on the scale and scope of Cars Land or the Star Wars lands. Beastly Kingdom would’ve brought mythological creatures to life in a park determined to showcase animals “real, ancient, and imagined.” A realm of dragons, unicorns, sea serpents, and dancing hippos, the unbelievable land would’ve been the envy of the industry.

Image: Disney

However, tightened budgets post-Paris meant that Beastly Kingdom would have to wait until a “Phase II” expansion of the park… And the closer it got to the park’s opening, the clearer it was that this Kingdom would never come. That’s when Imagineers – tired of Eisner’s cost cutting – left Disney behind and took their plans for Beastly Kingdom up the road… Would you believe that Disney Imagineers designed the best themed land Universal Orlando ever had? We chronicled the uncanny connection between Beastly Kingdom and Universal Orlando in its own in-depth, full feature, Lost Legends: The Lost Continent.

3 and 4. DisneySea California and WestCOT

Image: Disney

Location: California

In the early 1990s, Disney announced a brand new theme park coming to Southern California: DisneySea. That’s right – it was official. Disney would purchase property in Long Beach (including the docked Queen Mary) and construct a nautical theme park at a new resort called Port Disney.

Image: Disney

Meanwhile, back in Anaheim, the space once home to Disneyland’s parking lot would become yet another theme park. WestCOT would take the grand concepts of EPCOT Center and give them a Southern Californian twist, leaving behind the harsh concrete and divided country of the ‘80s in favor of a lush, glowing, natural 21st century Future World and a World Showcase made up of the “four corners of the globe,” united.

But as budgets ballooned and Paris fell, Eisner stalled. He insisted that only one of the two parks would come to fruition, pitting Long Beach and Anaheim against one another to see who could deliver the best tax package and infrastructure plan. Anaheim won, but even then, WestCOT’s budget got bigger and bigger as locals fought against the mega-resort to be built in their backyards. "I don't even know if there's going to be WestCOT. We're at a real crossroads," Eisner said at the time.

Image: Disney

Ultimately, Disney cancelled WestCOT, too. An emergency meeting of the penny-pinching executives Eisner had surrounded himself with post-Paris led to a simple idea: since Disneyland was often just a single stop on the average family trip to California, the only way to keep people on-property longer was to give them the experience of all that California had to offer without leaving Disneyland. We told the rest of the story WestCOT’s cancellation and the resulting park’s embarrassing debut and billion-dollar transformation in Disaster Files: Disney’s California Adventure – a must-read for theme park fans.

5. Indiana Jones and the Lost Expedition

Image: Disney

Location: Disneyland

In the early 1990s, Eisner’s radical plan was in action. He was determined to turn Disney Parks into exciting, engaging, current places where guests of all ages – even teenagers! – could find something to do. His landmark partnership with George Lucas had already opened Lost Legends: Captain EO and the original STAR TOURS, but the opportunity to bring Indiana Jones into Disney Parks was even more ambitious.

Click and expand for a more detailed view. Image: Disney

In fact, the plan was that half of Disneyland’s Adventureland would be annexed to Dr. Jones, becoming a “sub-land” called Indiana Jones and the Lost Expedition. An enormous portion of the land would take place inside of a massive volcanic river temple showbuilding, where no less than four attractions would interact and intersect: an indoor mine-cart roller coaster (as in the finale of Temple of Doom), a thrilling dark-ride using groundbreaking Enhanced Motion Vehicles (EMVs), plus a re-routed Disneyland Railroad and Jungle Cruise, both absorbed into Indy's time period and setting as they passed through the temple.

Click and expand for more detailed view. Image: Disney

With Paris down the drains, the budget was slashed and the Lost Expedition was doomed to remain buried. Though the larger-than-life Indiana Jones land was forgotten, a single element – the EMV dark rde – did go forward. Lucky for us, even the "downsized" element of such an ambitious project remains one of the most grand, elaborate, oversized, and downright adventurous rides Disney's ever designed. Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye is such an Imagineering marvel, it's hard to imagine what an objectively better Indiana Jones ride could even look like.

But That’s Not All

While it may be shocking to see the ambitious, almost-built projects Disney was this close to green-lighting, at least we never knew, loved, and grew-attached to these cancelled plans. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the rides that closed because of the financial strain Paris’ failure put on the company and the changing strategies and mindsets that strain inspired… Read on, as we see the heartbreaking closures of Lost Legends instigated by Disneyland Paris.

 
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Comments

Of course Paris led to innovation! I proudly call it the most beautiful Disneyland style park on Earth, easily beating even the original. In many pieces I've written here, I've praised Tony Baxter (a personal hero) who production-designed the whole thing. Paris is an absolute wonder! I'm not hard on it at all.

But never before in Disney Parks history has a single project been so ambitious that its failure lead to a sincere, fundamental change in executive leadership's understanding and actions. After Disneyland Paris failed to meet expectations (and by the way, 25 years later, it's *still* not financially balanced despite being the number one paid tourist attraction in Europe... think about that!), all of these projects were cancelled or closed. That's a tremendous, unimaginable impact.

The projects you listed above are great examples of Disney's low-cost efforts to "plus" to the park, and each has its own story:

- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril was rush-ordered to bring the park a new thrill ride ASAP. Imagineers had already planned to build Indiana Jones Adventure and Space Mountain: De la Terre à la Lune in a "Phase II" expansion of the park when it needed a boost of public awareness, but the park needed it *right away.* To compensate, Indy was designed and tossed in as a quick fix while Space Mountain could be hurried into production (in a much less ornate fashion than originally designed.) So the Indy roller coaster, while it might've been Disney's first with an inversion, is in fact the product of the cancellation of the much more elaborate Indiana Jones Adventure. The only follow-up Disney coaster that owes its existence to Temple of Peril is DisneySea's Raging Spirits.

- Walt Disney Studios Park was a contractually-obligated park that's easily Disney's least successful and lowest quality, and Lights, Motors, Action was cloned for Florida's own vacant Studio park where it's already been closed.

- The Little Mermaid ride designed for Disneyland Paris was ornate and unique, and after the park didn't meet expectations, it was cancelled... in other words, we could've put that ride on this list! The ride that eventually opened at Disney California Adventure and Magic Kingdom has very little in common with the Paris concept, which is a shame.

- Toy Story Playland was designed for Walt Disney Studios *because* the tiny park needed a "cheap and cheerful" infusion of family rides, and is now seen as a scapegoat concept that's dropped into any park that doesn't have enough to do and needs a low-budget way to get more: Hong Kong Disneyland, Shanghai Disneyland, and Disney's Hollywood Studios. It would be fair to list this as a "Cop-Out" in this feature.

In other words, don't get me wrong: I *LOVE* Disneyland Paris, and Disneyland Paris has contributed SO MUCH to Disney Parks and theme parks in general. But it's interesting to consider how different every other Disney Park on Earth would look today if it weren't built.

In reply to by Brian

Oh, well, then excuse me for reading your post in the wrong way.
It is true that Disneyland Paris is not making any money right now (and for the last 25 years), but I thought you were blaming the park for every cancelled projects. Yes, some of them are cancelled because of the financial disaster that is Disneyland Paris (you mentionned Indiana Jones Adventure in you comment, wich is a good example), but not all of them.

Anyway, I know understand your point of view and I agree with you on many points. Thank you for your reply!

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