Disney California Adventure Park recently brought Avengers: Endgame‘s climactic portals moment to life as part of its new World of Color – ONE nighttime extravaganza.
An enhanced version of the resort’s original World of Color shows designed to commemorate Disney’s 100th anniversary, ONE uses dancing water and special effects to recreate moments from Disney-owned properties. This includes the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which features during the final third of ONE during a sequence modeled on Endgame‘s most iconic scene. Strobe lighting and pyrotechnics are blended with footage from the film to replicate the scene, in which the MCU’s newly-restored heroes enter the climactic battle via magic portals conjured by Doctor Strange.
The MCU is set to play a key part in celebrating another Disney milestone, too. Disneyland Paris announced in January 2023 that the franchise’s premiere superhero team, the Avengers, will headline a nighttime drone show as part of the resort’s upcoming 30th-anniversary festivities. Avengers: Power the Night employs music, lights, pyrotechnics, video projections and as many as 500 drones to deliver dazzling representations of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ superpowers. Characters confirmed to feature in Avengers: Power of the Night include Captain America, Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, and Shang-Chi.
The MCU’s Disney Parks Presence
Shows like World of Color – ONE and Avengers: Power of the Night underscore just how fully Disney has integrated the MCU into its theme parks and resorts following its acquisition of Marvel Studios in 2009. Disney has opened several high-profile MCU-themed attractions around the world since then, including Disney World Epcot’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind rollercoaster. The ride is notable for featuring specially-shot video material in which Guardians of the Galaxy cast members Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Sean Gunn, Karen Gillan and Glenn Close reprise their roles.
Then there’s Avengers Campus, the section of Disney California Adventure Park devoted entirely to Marvel Studios’ stable of heroes and villains. Avengers Campus boasts performers dressed as popular MCU characters, as well as an animatronic Spider-Man capable of recreating the webslinger’s aerial antics in real life. The animatronic Spidey doesn’t always run smoothly, though, and it made headlines in June 2022 after failing spectacularly mid-performance. Footage of the malfunction was captured by a Disney California Adventure Park attendee. It showed the mechanized wall-crawler begin its routine as normal before its limbs stiffen and it goes hurtling into a nearby building. Nobody was injured in the incident and the animatronic Spider-Man has since been fixed.
