During a tumultuous conference call, in which Disney CEO Bob Iger had the difficult job of announcing layoffs and financial losses, theme park fans were given an absolute bombshell with the news that an “experience” based on the Avatar franchise would be coming to Disneyland Park in California. This would be the latest notable addition to the Disney parks on the West Coast following the addition of Avengers Campus.
Disney is currently riding the crest of a wave with James Cameron’s science fiction franchise, with its second film, The Way of Water, currently a whisker away from becoming the third-highest-grossing film of all time, following on from its predecessor which grossed almost $3 billion to become the biggest movie ever made.The company saw the potential in Avatar as a franchise long before their purchase of 20th Century Fox, striking a deal with Cameron and Lightstom to license a new land in their underserved Animal Kingdom Park in Orlando, Florida at the Walt Disney World Resort. Planning on that began in 2011, less than two years after the film was launched, with Iger and Cameron working on the deal together.
