Disney Animated Films To Become Immersive Live Experience

Disney Animation is partnering with Toronto-based Lighthouse Immersive Studios to launch an immersive live experience built around iconic films “from Snow White to Encanto,” executives said in an online news conference Thursday.

“Walt (Disney) was about how do you push boundaries and create something new and that’s what this is,” said Clark Spencer, president of Walt DisneyDIS
Animation Studios. “It’s brand new and incredibly exciting to think about taking this and creating something people have never experienced before.”

The project represents the latest landmark in the rather sudden explosion of interest in immersive experiences, which have taken off in popularity for both audiences and potential investors looking to grab a piece of the next generation in live entertainment.

In February, Fever said it had raised $227 million in an investment round led by Goldman Sachs. Last month, TodayTix bought SecretSCRT
Cinema, a leading creator of experiences for big brands and entertainment companies such as Netflix
NFLXNFLX, for more than $100 million.

The Disney Animation Immersive Experience will debut in Toronto at Lighthouse’s original facility, a transformed former printing press bay for the Toronto Star newspaper, in mid-December. It will then roll out to 10 U.S. cities in the first four months of 2023, beginning with Cleveland. A “second set” of 10 more U.S. cities is scheduled to debut later in the year, to be followed by international expansion and touring versions of the experience.

The core 47-minute immersive experience will be bookended with interactive exhibits and other material in an extensive preview space that will highlight Disney’s famed artists and the process of creating animated films, from “script to screen,” said David Korins, Lighthouse’s creative director. The combined experience will last between 60 and 90 minutes.

“I’m just having this complete pinch-me moment, Being able to tell a story over almost 100 years of Disney (intellectual property),” Korins said. “Any one of these (films) could have an immersive experience by themselves, but the idea (is) that we’re going to be able to pull all these experiences into one and down a rabbit hole. You really get to see the hand of the animators. We’re going to celebrate the work of the animators from all time periods. We’re literally going from script to screen.”

Upon entering the venue, audiences will don a wristband, similar to those used in Disney theme parks, that will trigger various interactive experiences, said producer Jay Miles Dale, who won an Oscar for his work The Shape of Water.

The experience will feature music from many of the projects in what Dale said is “songbook of all our lives.”

“Having that body of work to deal with gave us such a broad canvas to work with,” Dale said. “We wanted to showcase the performance of those artists who created the work. This will be an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at how the work was created. I feel like honoring those animators is a big thing to do.”

Though the experience will cover between two-thirds and three-fourths of all of Disney’s animated films, company executives in particular mentioned it will feature imagery and music from Frozen, Moana, The Lion King, Rapunzel, Lilo & Stitch, Encanto, and the older Fantasia and Snow White.

“People are used to sitting in the [theater] seat and having a very stationary experience,” Spencer said. “Here, you can walk around the room, look around, and have the music of this iconic studio. It’s going to be incredible. What’s going to be so exciting is to be in that space and to feel it is something that’s truly magical.”

Cesar Moheno-Pla of Mexico City’s Cocolab, who designed Lighthouse’s recent Immersive King Tut experience, emphasized the opportunity to examine up close the movies’ artwork at massive scale: “Being inside these amazing scenes and these iconic characters and feel like we’re surrounded by the movie,” said Pla. “Walk among the animals across the savanna to (The Lion King’s) Pride Rock, the Festival of Light with Rapunzel, in the plaza for Encanto. This is a really exciting opportunity for us and for the audience.”

Among the cities in the first set of rollouts of the experience are Las Vegas, Denver, Nashville, Columbus, Detroit and Minneapolis, all debuting in the first four months of 2023.

Lighthouse made its name licensing Immersive Van Gogh, created by Italian designer Massimilliano Siccardi whose original production was a hit in Paris, selling 2 million tickets before the pandemic hit. Lighthouse’s North American version ran in 20 U.S. and Canadian cities, some in facilities run with joint-venture partner Impact Museums, and sold 5 million more tickets in 2021 and 2022. It was one of the most popular live events in the country in 2021 and early 2022.

Lighthouse cofounder Corey Ross said the experience “undoubtedly will hit the Los Angeles area and Anaheim. We’re still working on our plans in LA. Our plan is to distribute this widely and give people a chance to experience the Disney oeuvre wherever they are.”

Disney has launched a website about the experience at disneyimmersive.com.