If you have ever walked into a Disney theme park and wondered how those incredible worlds go from a movie screen to a fully immersive land you can actually step inside, the new Disney+ documentary Disney WORLDBUILDERS is made for you. At D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event earlier this month, fans got an exclusive preview of the film from director Leslie Iwerks, followed by a panel featuring some of the biggest creative minds at Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm.
Disney CEO Bob Iger set the tone right away, saying that Disney’s magic comes from “the storytellers, the filmmakers, our imagineers, and our cast members all around the world.” Iwerks said the idea for the documentary actually came to her while she was working on Disneyland Handcrafted, when she started imagining what it would be like to ask Walt Disney himself how it felt to walk through one of his own themed lands. Since that is not possible, she did the next best thing and sat down with the people doing it today.
The panel brought together Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, Lucasfilm President Dave Filoni, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu director Jon Favreau, and Walt Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer Jared Bush. Each one shared genuinely emotional stories about seeing their work transformed into real, walkable worlds. Docter said walking into a Pixar-themed land for the first time was “overwhelming.” Bush admitted he had “not good-looking tears. Ugly tears” when he walked through the Zootopia land at Shanghai Disney Resort. Feige called seeing the Stark Expo at Hong Kong Disneyland “a dream become reality.” These are the people who make the magic, and even they get emotional about it.
The panel also touched on the challenge of building experiences for multigenerational fanbases, staying true to Walt Disney’s original vision while still pushing things forward, and what the future of Disney storytelling could look like across theme parks, film, and beyond. Disney WORLDBUILDERS is available now on Disney+, and if you are a Disney parks fan, it is absolutely worth adding to your watch list this week.
Have you watched Disney WORLDBUILDERS yet? What did you think? Let us know in the comments!
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