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Director James Cameron, in a video clip screened at the all-things-Disney D23 Expo in Japan over the weekend, offered a tantalizing glimpse at a planned Avatar-themed attraction to open in Walt Disney World.
The attraction, tentatively called Avatar Land — which will feature rides and nighttime shows based on the fictional planet of Pandora — will be a part of Disney’s Animal Kingdom resort and is scheduled to open sometime in 2017.
“The sheer beauty of the forest at night, all the beauty, all the wonder, the scale and grandeur you remember from that film” is what we can expect, says Disney Imagineering exec Joe Rohde in the promotional clip.
In both artist renderings and a scaled-down model of Pandora, we see the movie’s floating mountains as a major backdrop to the land and a water ride coming to life in the dark.
“This is an unparalleled immersive environment that can be explored and enjoyed,” Cameron says about a land film fans begged for in real life.
There’s still plenty of the new Avatar land left unknown, but the model shows a tree-heavy environment that will weave visitors in paths through the land’s striking visuals. With three Cameron-made Avatar sequels in production now, it remains up in the air about how much of all four movies will make it into the real-life Pandora.