[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.]
Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure is more than just a land in a theme park, it’s a superhero experience. While it’s small in its space and short on rides (although an upcoming multiverse attraction featuring King Thanos has been announced), the land more than makes up for both of those things with the amount of characters and variety of ways you can see them, meet them, and get superhero tips from them. And it’s all even more special during the holidays at the Disneyland Resort, with a focus on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Collider was recently invited by the Disneyland Resort to check out all the new and returning offerings for the holidays, including ride overlays, themed food and drinks, special merchandise, parades, nighttime shows and all the always impeccable decorations in both parks. Along with all of that, Avengers Campus has some new offerings to celebrate the release of the Black Panther sequel that both pay tribute to King T’Challa and look forward to the future of the new Black Panther. While there, Collider (along with a couple other outlets) got the lowdown from Michael Serna with Walt Disney Imagineering, who’s had a hand in everything guests see in Avengers Campus from the very early days, on how things evolve from an idea to actually making their way into the land.
When it comes to Wakanda Forever, they’d already been thinking about how to incorporate the world and characters for a couple of years. They knew the movie would be really huge, so they wanted to figure out the best way to have additional representation, and in the final six months prior to its release, they were let into the inner circle so that they could craft their exact approach. “We knew that a new Black Panther and someone taking on that mantle was important to the film, so that was gonna be important to us,” said Serna, whose current title is Executive Creative Director at Disney Live Entertainment. “The ability for us to deliver that to our guests was crucial because we love to remain relevant and be up-to-date here in the Campus, and be fresh with what you're seeing in the films and series. We were able to find ways to make [the experience] even richer and continue to tell the Wakanda story, which we really love to tell in our resort and in our Campus. What drove us first was, ‘Who's taking on the mantle and how do we tell a story around that?’”
Not only do they tell a story about that and Shuri’s (Letitia Wright) new Black Panther suit, which definitely has a glow-up of its own, but they wanted to make it a big deal because it’s an important moment for Wakanda. Guests will get to see her on top of the headquarters, when she gets announced each day, and they’ll also get to see her up close, to see just how spectacular the new suit is. And if you would like to pay tribute to the late King T’Challa, you can make your way over to the Black Panther Celebration Garden, steps away from the site of the Collector’s Fortress, where you will also find the Wakanda language, which does translate. For a hint, the four columns on either side of the monument spell out the names of the four members of the family – T’Challa, Shuri, Ramonda and T’Chaka – but if that doesn’t help you translate everything else in the Garden, you can likely turn to the internet for answers.
Shuri’s Black Panther isn’t the only new character addition to Avengers Campus. Several times a day, guests will get to see and interact with M’Baku, leader of the Jabari Tribe. Serna explained, “I loved M'Baku in the first film. We had brought in General Okoye and the Dora Milaje, and I thought, ‘What's a balance to that? What kind of energy is different?’ M'Baku was such a giant figure in the first film, so I went back to the studio and said, ‘What do you think about us doing this?’ And they said, ‘Yes, a hundred percent.’ When I saw the movie, I went, ‘Oh, I see why they really were on board with it.’ The excitement around that was really from me saying, ‘How can we bring in something different?’ I love his humor. I love the spirit of what the Jabari are about. They are a tribe that is more about organic things, and not about Vibranium and futurism. That’s very different than the rest of the stories.”
Through the experience, they hope guests will understand the spirit of why the Jabari are the way they are. While the Dora Milaje experience, "The Warriors of Wakanda: The Disciplines of the Dora Milaje," is about how you have inner strength as an individual, the Jabari experience, “The Way of the Jabari,” is more about how you’re stronger and more powerful as a group of people. When it comes to the process for deciding whether to just do a meet-and-greet, of which you could see any number of superheroes at any time throughout the day, or to integrate a fuller experience, they’ve had three guiding principles from the very beginning of Avengers Campus. “We knew guests would wanna meet their heroes,” said Serna. “We knew they would see them do amazing action and be heroic, like Spider-Man flying. But we also knew that guests wanted to train alongside them and do things with the heroes, which is a different approach for us to make sure that it was active, and not a show or something that you're watching from afar, but really being a part of it. So, as we look at our experiences, it's about how we can engage. Rather than some hero roaming around and meeting them, it's about what we can do with them and how they can be plussed up by not being just a photo opportunity. It's an experience that you share, that you take home with you, that's something different, and that has an emotional connection.”
If you still haven’t had your fill of all things Wakanda, there’s the Flavors of the Wakanda booth with an African-inspired menu that includes Peri Peri Chicken and Maafe, and a variety of different types of merchandise, including clothing, a purse, ears, a mug, and a Black Panther plush. All of this is much easier to plan and bring to life when Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige is a big Disney Parks fan himself, making him an amazing collaborative partner. Serna said, “[We] bounce ideas off that team and really work closely. They're really transparent about things. They informed us of major plot points [for Wakanda Forever] and brought us into the tiny circle who knew things very early, which really helped us work them. Often, the studio said, ‘Yes, more,’ versus trying to confine us to something. When we would throw out big ideas, they'd say, ‘That sounds great. Can you do something 10 times bigger?’ It's really exciting to work with partners that way, that want this to be alive and relevant, and don't want it to be a historical piece that you visit and say, ‘Remember back in 1999, when things were like that?’ We're looking forward, all the time.”
And while they are always looking forward and assuredly have many things in the planning stages, not being a part of that inner circle ourselves meant that we weren’t going to get any of those details out of Serna. “I have nothing to tease right now. Just know that we have cool things consistently being planned. For sure, there will be more to come. We're not stopping. We're just getting started.”
Even without so much as a hint on what they’re planning, it’s easy to be reassured by Serna, who’s been a Marvel fan himself since way back. “I read a lot as a kid. When I found comic books as a child, it was Marvel comics that really got me into comic books. It was exciting to read those big heroic stories, and it was a whole different world that I'd never experienced. At one point, I stopped, but then the movies came out, and it reinvigorated my passion again.”
The self-proclaimed proud nerd continued, “I was just very fortunate that I was working in Imagineering, at the time when this became very important to everybody there. They were like, ‘Does anybody know anything about these things?’ And I was like, ‘I know a lot about these things.’ It was really a perfect moment for me to be able to jump in, start telling these stories, and work with these other filmmakers and storytellers. That's been the most exciting thing for me. I filter all my experiences and the way I approach everything from a fan’s point of view because I was a 10-year-old fan. I always think, ‘What would 10-year-old fan Michael want?,’ because 40-something Michael definitely wants the same cool thing. It's very easy for me to think of experiences because I just think about what I would want.”
As things have progressed in Avengers Campus, they want to accomplish the goal of having something that’s relevant immediately represented, so the teams at Marvel Studios and Disney+ are starting that line of communication a lot earlier now. Explained Serna, “When we first started, it was a little bit of, ‘Oh, yeah, sure, we could do a thing.’ Now, they're jumping at us and saying, ‘Hey, in a few months, here's this.’ We have a pretty big timeline. The Disneyland Resort has been really great about embracing that, as a concept, and jumping in and saying, ‘How do we find ways to continue to make this happen?’ We want to make these experiences unique, so it’s not just a character appearing, but maybe they’re appearing on an evening, or at a special event, like Oogie Boogie Bash.
They’re also working closely to ensure that the heroes in Avengers Campus are the characters that you see in the film or series. They don’t see it as adapting, but instead literally seeing that hero come to life, off the screen. The goal is to have guests see a hero and believe that they’re real, they’re in front of you, and you’re seeing them in their uniform, suit or costume.
“The way we look at Avengers Campus and the multiverse is exciting to us because anything can happen,” said Serna. “Three Spider-Man characters may converge in one world. We look at that as an opportunity for us. What we really want is for Avengers Campus to be a surprising place, where it’s never expected that, if you show up at one o'clock, you’ll see a show that’s set for one o'clock. Instead, 10 things might happen. We really wanna make that a fun surprise for our guests because that’s the world from the comic books and the movies. Things happen, experiences happen, heroic things happen, and terrible things happen. They save the world one day, and the next day, they're just having shawarma. The important thing about Avengers Campus is giving it that diversity of experience and characters, and that's been really good.”
Taking that into consideration, anytime you’re in Avengers Campus, be sure to keep your eyes peeled because you never really know which superheroes or villains you might run into, when you could get a photo or have an even cooler interaction with them, or when you’ll see a cool little show, so just be ready. You can check out more photos from Avengers Campus below:
