From Marvel film to attraction: Avengers Campus opens at Disneyland Paris | NOW

The whole world already knows about superhero movies, but how do you translate them into a physical experience? In recent years, Disneyland Paris has worked hard to take visitors into the Marvel universe. The result, the Avengers Campus, opens July 20 at Walt Disney Studios Park. “We put our soul and our salvation into this,” artistic director Beth Clapperton told NU.nl.

Helping Peter Parker (Spider-Man’s real name) avoid a duplicate robot disaster, or getting blasted out into the universe as a superhero on a roller coaster: these are two of the attractions opening soon at the park of French attractions.

Thanks to an investment of 2 billion euros in 2018, the Walt Disney Studios Park will expand considerably in the years to come. The first result is the Marvel Avengers campus. The theme park, already open in Los Angeles, offers several superhero-centric attractions. Some come directly from the United States, others are only in Paris.

“A few years ago, we started discussing how we could translate the world of Marvel into something physical,” the designer explains. “You start with the basics, these are always epic stories with a human core. We wanted to create a place that the Avengers could have created.”

“The story now is that they want a world with more heroes. They hope to discover and train new superheroes across their campus. and the power of collaboration. On the surface, we’ve kept the theatrical movies and comics more out.”

Compress history in minutes

Clapperton more often translates films into attractions. She previously worked on the attraction featured in the Pixar film Ratatouille was based. “You start with a story and compress it into an experience that lasts four or five minutes. It’s never the same as an hour and a half movie. So you have to dissect it and refine it.”

“In the meantime, you also need to think about how you want to plug in your attraction. Will it be something you physically walk around in, will you see film footage? Looking for tools to tell the story .”

Beth Clapperton is working on new attractions at Disneyland Paris.

“As Powerful as a Movie”

The process of translating a movie into an attraction takes years, says Clapperton. “I started this project in November 2018, but a smaller team had already started it a year earlier. The whole process is divided into three parts. After a design phase where you let your imagination run wild , everything is designed with three-dimensional drawings. , to then start the real production. These three phases take about the same time.

Like much has already been imagined in the cinematic universe, Clapperton also had to move on the beaten path. Doesn’t she feel inhibited by this? “Certainly not,” she replies.

“On the contrary. The richer the Marvel Universe gets, the more ways we find to tell a story. When you translate something cinematic into a physical world, sometimes you run into physical limitations. For example, we don’t have movie trick make someone fly, so if imaginers we use other tricks. You also have many creative possibilities to tell a story there. I find it as powerful as a movie.”