Exec Kathy Mangum Moving to WDW now that Cars Land is Open

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

The story also touches on "unsubstantiated rumors" about a possible Cars Land at Hollywood Studios.

On can only hope for something like that at DHS.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/the-daily-disney/os-disney-kathy-mangum-imagineering-20120808,0,5898268.story

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Fingers crossed!

For anyone interested, Kathy Mangum is interviewed in a lot of the "behind the scenes" shows that air on Discovery and Travel Channel. She's been around Disney for quite a while.

Let's hope Ms Mangum can bring some cool stuff to WDW with her!

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Plenty of speculation in this post from MousePlanet...

Mangum takes Imagineering leadership position at Walt Disney World; Avatar land moving forward?

Walt Disney Imagineering Executive Vice President and Producer Kathy Mangum has been transferred from the Disneyland Resort to a new position at the Walt Disney World Resort. The WDI executive, who most recently led the Cars Land project at Disney California Adventure park, is the new Executive Producer for Walt Disney World, which essentially puts her in charge of all projects at the resort. The WDI Senior Vice Presidents in charge of the parks, Joe Rohde (Disney's Animal Kingdom) and Eric Jacobson (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios), will report to Mangum. She arrives as major projects come to fruition in the Magic Kingdom's New Fantasyland and Epcot's re-imagined Test Track.

Speculation has already begun on what the next major project might be at Walt Disney World, and it looks like it will be the Avatar-based land at Disney's Animal Kingdom announced last September. Mangum's success in translating the animated world of Cars to the theme parks would seem to fit well with the project's requirements to bring the fantastic world of Pandora to life.

Confirmation that the Avatar project is next up comes straight from the mouth of Bob Iger in an interview with Business Week, in which Iger said, "We’re building out Fantasyland now in the Magic Kingdom, then we’ll add Avatar Land." But that's not the only indicator.

The very reliable Honor Hunter writes on his Blue Sky Disney blog that the "blue sky" phase of design may be ready to move to the next phase, and that the land will be approximately 10 to 12 acres (Cars Land is 12 acres). He further notes, "There will be at least three attractions (rides) in the land with plenty of places to eat exotic, foreign foods and shop for strange, alien merchandise. Of those attractions, at least one will involve a flight simulator technology that will be heavily modified from the ones used for 'Soarin' Over California.'"

Discussion over the name of the new land, according to Hunter, is mostly focusing around three candidates: Pandora, The World of Pandora, and Pandora: The World of Avatar. It appears that the leading candidate is the last of those.

What other indicators are there that "Pandora: The World of Avatar" is moving forward?

About a week ago, a number of balloons were seen flying tethered at varying heights at Disney's Animal Kingdom before the park opened. Disney flies balloons at various elevations of key structures in this common method to determine what the sightlines of an area would be like. Based on the reported location of the balloons, the new land would go in the Camp Minnie-Mickey area. Locating the new land in this location (which at one time was the planned site of the Beastlie Kingdomme land) would likely require the closure of the Festival of the Lion King theater. An unconfirmed report claims that the show will be shut down for just such a purpose in January. Of course, 10-12 acres would be a tight fit there, and the vacant space between Africa and Asia could much more easily accommodate the site. We probably won't know for sure until earth-moving starts.

So what new advances could we see in such a land? Disney Research has published information about a new project called "Botanicus Interacticus," a "technology [that] can be used to design highly interactive responsive environments based on plants, developing new forms of organic, living interaction devices as well as creating organic ambient and pervasive interfaces." Basically, they've created a control system that uses a plant (real or artificial) as an input device. The input could then theoretically be used to control the movement of the artificial plant itself, making it seem like the plant is interacting with the user. What better way to create a living, interactive plant?

The pieces are starting to fall into place, and—while we won't know how the second and third Avatar movies will do at the box office—it looks like there's an excellent chance that the new land will indeed come online in the 2015-2016 time frame as originally planned.

http://www.mouseplan...d_Resort_Update

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Big time RUMOR from Screamscape...

2015/2016 - PANDORA - The World of Avatar - Confirmed - (8/10/12) The latest buzz from the Rhinos is that the Festival of the Lion King show is expected to close in January to make way for Avatar. The long term plan is to move to into a new theater somewhere, but it sounds like the show will close down complete long before this happens.

http://www.screamscape.com/html/wdw_-_animal_kingdom.htm#Avatar