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James Cameron Teams Up With Walt Disney World to Create Avatar Land, Anaheim Could See Its Own Disneyfied Pandora Too
Disney announced this week that they're teaming up with James Cameron to recreate the world of Pandora at their amusement park in Orlando Florida.
Avatar Land, which will take over the Animal Kingdom, is tentatively scheduled to open in 2015, when the third installment of the Avatar is supposed to come out. There are no immediate plans for any Avatar Land in Anaheim or any other Disney Parks, for now, although press reps said that will likely happen in the future.
It seems that the technology for film and amusement parks on running on parallel tracks.
Jim Hill from the Huffington Post explains how the deal came together: Not long after Avatar came out, Thomas Staggs, the head honcho for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts was looking over his recent work. There's Orlando's "Star Tours: The Adventures Continue," which managed to reboot a 24-year-old ride by using modern 3D technology and high-definition video. There is "Cars Land" in Anaheim, which hasn't opened, but he was impressed that Imagineering has succeeded in recreating the world of Pixar.
Staggs was looking to combine everything that they had learned from the two rides in one immersive experience. It would allows riders to take a trip to a new world, and then step out and explore it. Asking James Cameron to team up and create an Avatar Land seemed like a no-brainer.
"I toured around Imagineering, which I've done several times over the years and always sort of flirted with projects," Cameron explained. "(So when Disney called), I thought okay, this will be about an attraction, a ride attraction for Avatar. Came over and met, and met Tom Staggs. And I quickly realized that their vision for this thing was far beyond what I had imagined, and I've got a pretty good imagination."
The Around Disney blog at the Orange County Register has a run-down of how some of Disney's new park technology could be put to use to recreate the land of the Na'vi.
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