Chris Galindo
Veteran Member
Very interesting read. Remember reading elsewhere that an idea of riders/ the theme using the Pokemon Snap system or storyline would be actually creative and a well thought replacement for the attraction.
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Is Pokémon replacing Spider-Man at USJ?
- Thread starter AnyNameYouWish
- Start date
When skimming through the Marvel Universal contract, I read that as long as Marvel is in a certain region with a Universal park, Marvel cannot be used in the Universal park. If and when they finally let SpiderMan go, It would not surprise me if Disney looks to put an Avengers Campus in Tokyo DisneyLand.
quinnmac000
Veteran Member
OLC was offered Marvel and they already said no...just like with Star Wars.
If a third park ever happens at USJ in the compact amount of land it would have to sit on (which i'm not convinced will ever happen), Star Wars and Marvel are enticing as big draws to a new park. However, they don't seem to want to compromise the integrity of their Disneyland or shove in IPs that don't fit thematically with TDS (which I applaud them for).
quinnmac000
Veteran Member
TDR's competition is USJ....the issue is those two IPs wouldn't be able to counter USJ's anime IP dominance. While Marvel and Star Wars are popular in Japan, the anime and domestic IPs are much stronger with local audiences (Even with the pandemic, USJ hit capacity when they had the demon slayer event)...
Also even when it comes to Marvel, the most popular hero in Japan is Spider-Man. So taking USJ's spiderman and adding DCA's spiderman ride might not do well.
Why MCU Movies Don’t Do Well In Japan
Japanese audiences are not fully aboard the MCU train.
screenrant.com
OLC would be better off creating an attraction based on Lilo and Stitch than Marvel/Star Wars at this time (Stitch was so popular, he had his own tv show and manga that wasn't released in the US )
This is precisely because Marvel put the effort into making the character appeal to Japanese audiences back in the 70's and 80's. The Disney+ documenatary series Marvel's 616 does a great job of covering this topic. Here's a short clip:
That's exactly why I don't understand why they still don't have a good Lilo & Stitch attraction (Stitch encounter is not). There they love the character, I always ask him why they don't dedicate a dark ride, a coaster...
I think Stitch's time is long over in Japan. He was huge in the 2000s but considered old hat now and not that popular with young Japanese today. More of a memory for people in their mid-20s and 30s now.
Marvel and Star Wars are decently well known but not as popular as in the U.S. Star Wars in particular is significantly less popular. I frequently meet young Japanese who have heard of Star Wars but never seen it or only seen one movie a long time ago. I think it's considered more of a thing that their parents were into in the '80s. It's also fairly common for Star Tours at TDL to be near walk-on.
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