The very last Muppets project Jim Henson worked on before his death could soon close for good.
The project in question is called Muppet*Vision 3D, an attraction located in Orlando, Florida at Disney Hollywood Studios. The show — a 3D movie with additional in-theater effects — opened at the park in 1991. Although Henson died in 1990, before the attraction officially opened, he directed the film as well as puppeteered Kermit the Frog and several other Muppet characters in it.
The film also screened at Disney’s California Adventure park for over a decade, but that version of Muppet*Vision closed in 2014. And now it looks as though the Florida attraction may close as well to make way for new rides at Hollywood Studios.
According to TheWrap, Disney has “only a few weeks to decide whether to keep Muppet*Vision 3D or to shut it down.” One of Disney’s recently announced additions to Hollywood Studios is an entire area of attractions themed around Pixar’s Monsters Inc. franchise. The trade’s sources claim that the original plan for the announcement would have included “alternate artwork … that would have more directly pinpointed that Muppet*Vision is on the chopping block.”
Instead, that concept art “was swapped for something more nebulous.”
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Though Disney has not confirmed plans for Muppet*Vision, “eagle-eyed fans still spotted a telltale water tower that gave away the location [of the new Monsters Inc. area], taking to social media to express their outrage.”
TheWrap’s report claims there is the potential to build the Monsters Inc. land in another area of the park — the Animation Courtyard, which once housed a functional animation studio, but in recent years has served as the home to an attraction where fans can take pictures with Star Wars costumed characters. But the area where Muppet*Vision sits is reportedly “more ideal” to the new plan, because the surrounding area already has buildings that could be repurposed for restaurants and shopping.
The nature of theme parks makes them cyclical; to build exciting new things that draw guests back, you sometimes need to shutter the old ones that, while still enjoyable, are no longer seen as draws. Most of the attractions that were around at Disney Hollywood Studios when Muppet*Vision first opened are long gone, including a backlot tour, that animation studio, and The Great Movie Ride, which shuttered a few years ago to make way for a new Mickey Mouse train ride.
The issue is that the more old attractions close, the more nostalgic people feel for the few vintage ones that remain — like Muppet*Visionˆ, which also holds that extra special place in Muppets history because of Henson’s work on it. So if that plan to replace it with Monsters Inc. holds, there could be quite a Statler and Waldorf-esque ruckus from the internet.
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