It Looks Like Disney Wants to Add Black Panther Land to Disneyland
Following a year of closure, Disneyland has announced a new plan that would see the theme park greatly expanding in the next few years. The “DisneylandForward” initiative will involve the city of Anaheim as the park reimagines its resort district, adding lands inspired by popular Disney-owned movies including Frozen, Tangled, Peter Pan, and more. As eagle-eyed fans pointed out, a closer look at the expansion plans reveal a section that resembles the fictional nation of Wakanda. Is a Black Panther land coming to the Disneyland Resort?
The “Immersive Theme Park Expansion” seeks to integrate Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure by offering a wealth of new experiences to both parks. Potential attractions coming to Disneyland could include a boat ride nestled in Anna and Elsa’s kingdom of Arendelle, a gondola ride to Rapunzel’s lantern festival, and a boat ride that follows Peter Pan’s Lost Boys down a river. Whew, that’s a lot of potential boat rides.
Meanwhile, DCA’s expansion will focus more on immersive experiences inspired by Toy Story, Zootopia, and TRON. But venture over to the potential expansion taking place near the park’s adjacent hotels, and things get really interesting. If you look closely at DisneylandForward's imagined map of the new expansion, you'll see an aerial view of what closely resembles the giant panther statue in Wakanda:
While Disney has yet to confirm the proposed addition of a Black Panther land, it’s hard to imagine what else this section of the map could indicate. With the rebranding of Tower of Terror to a Guardians of the Galaxy theme, as well as the construction of the Avengers Campus nearly complete, another Marvel park experience would fit right in.
Keep in mind, these new expansions are still in the proposal stage. Although Disneyland claims it wants to reconfigure the land it already has, the city of Anaheim still needs to give its approval before anything can move forward. As such, these plans and maps are extremely preliminary, and primarily designed to convince the city of Anaheim to change Disneyland’s zoning. Still it’s exciting to speculate about these big changes, especially since we haven’t been able to experience that Disneyland magic for so long.
Gallery — Cool Movie Theme Park Rides That Were Never Made: