Back when Disneyland was first built Walt constructed Sleeping Beauty Castle, despite the fact that Disney’s Sleeping Beauty movie wouldn’t arrive in theaters for three years. It has always been part of Disney’s DNA to promote its projects inside its theme parks but in recent years we’ve seen even more emphasis placed on that. Characters from the new Star Wars and Marvel Disney+ series appear alongside the new shows on a regular basis. We know the same will be true with Asha, the star of Disney’s new animated movie Wish, but it seems that won’t be the only place we’ll see elements from the film in the parks when the movie arrives.
It was recently revealed during the Destination D23 event that Asha would be arriving at Disneyland, Epcot, and Disneyland Paris, this year, likely around the same time that Wish arrives in theaters. CinemaBlend’s own Sarah El-Mahmoud had a chance to speak with Wish’s producers Peter Del Vecho and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster-Jones, and they revealed that even more is planned in the parks when Wish hits theaters. According to Del Vecho…
There’s certainly incredible interest in this movie to be part of the parks. I know we have plans in place, but I’m gonna let the parks speak to that and let them reveal that over time.
We can always expect to see new merchandise in the parks when new movies come out, so that’s not much of a surprise, we certainly won’t be expecting any sort of major attraction. But just about anything in between is possible. There’s a good chance we could see new food items at various places that are inspired by the movie, we could even see live shows or new parade floats that incorporate Asha or other parts of Wish.
There was one other place where Wish had already been represented. Wonderous Journeys the nighttime spectacular at Disneyland included elements from every Walt Disney Animation Studios film, including Wish. Ironically, that’s one thing we won’t see in the parks when the movie comes out, as Disneyland will be celebrating the holiday season when the Wish release date arrives in November. So a different fireworks show will be on offer.
Lancaster-Jones reiterated that there is more on the way than we’ve been informed of so far, saying…
Yeah, there’s quite a few surprises coming up that you’ll see.
The fact that we’re getting Asha so soon is a surprise in itself. We don’t usually see characters from Disney’s animated films arrive as live characters in the park nearly as quickly as this is happening. Mirabel and Raya both appear in the parks now, but it took some time for that to happen. Disney doesn’t want to have a character appear and then have nobody get in line for a photo.
It’s clear that Disney is putting some strong support behind Wish if they’re not only bringing Asha to the parks early but doing even more that hasn’t been revealed yet. Hopefully, this all means Wish is likely to be a big hit with fans of both the Walt Disney Animation Studios and Disney Parks.