Disney unveils a 1920s theme for California Adventure
The $1-billion effort to revive the park will try to re-create the era when Walt Disney arrived in Hollywood.
Disney's California Adventure is poised for a $1-billion makeover that's designed to give the troubled theme park the main thing it lacks -- an emotional connection to keep people coming back.
The sweeping overhaul will transport visitors to the California of the 1920s, when Walt Disney first arrived in Hollywood. In the same way that Disneyland's Main Street evokes Disney's hometown of Marceline, Mo., a refocused California Adventure will follow the young animator's journey to Los Angeles.
Disney's sizable investment, to be spent through 2012, comes atop the initial $1 billion the entertainment giant spent to build the park, which opened in 2001, and $300 million more put into new attractions such as the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Toy Story Midway Mania.
The stakes for Disney go beyond an obvious desire to boost attendance at California Adventure, which has always been overshadowed by neighboring Disneyland, and prolong the length of time visitors stay at its Anaheim parks.
"What's at stake for Disney is their reputation," said Gary Goddard, a Los Angeles-based theme-park designer who once worked for Disney.
The plans unveiled Wednesday provided the most detailed look yet at the expansion announced a year ago. Taken together, the updates and additions seek to tackle the most persistent criticism of California Adventure: its generic, done-on-the-cheap feel.
David Koenig, author of several books about Disney's parks, said the second Anaheim park never took visitors beyond the place they started: contemporary California.
"It's like buying your airplane ticket, getting in your seat, only to have your airplane sit on the runway," Koenig said. "You're already there."
California Adventure's planned nod to history, and the deepening connection to the company's beloved founder, seemed to be an acknowledgment of that flaw.
"It's interesting how wonderfully articulate our audience can be when they say they love to go to Disneyland, and they love to go to Disney parks because they feel they're transported somewhere, transported out of their daily lives," said Bob Weis, executive vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering and creative leader for the park renovation and expansion.
"We're taking them to a more idealized, more nostalgic feel of California," Weis said.
