The Walt Disney Company is a multi-headed Hydra that has become the undisputed king of franchise buildings. One of the things Disney has that makes them so successful compared to other studios is their theme parks. Disney is able to make rides based on movies and movies based on rides. They also promote new movies within the parks in other ways, such as adding walk-on characters to the park when a new movie or show debuts or simply previewing movie attractions in the park, but the Disneyland Resort has added something completely new ahead of its release. Pixar’s Elementary which may be the biggest cross-promotion piece ever.
Instead of just offering a brief preview of it Elementary inside the theater that hosts Mickey’s Philharmagic at Disney California Adventure, as has happened many times before with many Disney films, an animated short titled Elementary Connection debuted on Friday night, June 2nd ahead of the new and improved World of Color – ONE, and like the nighttime spectacular, the short will be screened on water screens, creating one of the most unique presentations of an animated short ever can. I’m thinking.
This is great because not only will it introduce Disneyland Resort guests to the characters and world of the upcoming Disney movie before it’s released, but it’s doing it in a way that you just can’t get any other way. It’s one thing to see it Elementary trailer in a theater or online or to see a new animated short on Disney+, but you have to go to Disney California Adventure to experience this piece of animation that way. So not only can theme park visitors be interested in the movie, but it could also attract those interested in the movie to the theme park.
It opens the door to many other opportunities to promote films in creative ways. We could see small snippets of animation from the upcoming Disney animated film Wish is shown at Sleeping Beauty Castle before a fireworks display. Walking characters from a movie could be incorporated into Fantasmic if the series returns to Disneyland before they actually appear on screen.
I sure hope we see a lot of things like this happening in the parks. It’s nice to see a special scene from an upcoming movie, but incorporating these preview opportunities into the sights just adds something extra that’s likely to make this Elemental short film that much more fun.
While debuting a few weeks ago ElementaryIts release date will hopefully stick to the summer so that once people become fans of the movie, they can still check out that extra piece of animation since the fact is they can’t get there sooner.
