Newly named Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro wants Disneyland visitors to fall in love with Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run after the installation of a Mandalorian and Grogu overlay that promises to give every rider the chance to participate in the story of the revamped flight simulator ride.
“Guests like it, but they don’t love it,” D’Amaro told the Harvard Business Review during a Smugglers Run design session at Walt Disney Imagineering.
D’Amaro will succeed Disney CEO Bob Iger on March 18 during the company’s annual meeting.
D’Amaro invited the Harvard Business Review to sit in on a design session with 30 Imagineers where plans were discussed for the new adventure starring the Mandalorian and Grogu aboard Smugglers Run coming to Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios on May 22.
D’Amaro’s diagnosis of the key problem with Smugglers Run: The pilots control the adventure while the gunners and engineers have much less to do.
“The redesign they planned in that room meant no one on the ride would merely be a passenger,” according to the Harvard Business Review. “It would give each person agency — the chance to influence the outcome, demonstrate skill and feel part of the story. Instead of leaving saying, ‘I liked it,’ riders could leave saying, ‘I loved it.’”
D’Amaro has spent hours with Imagineering analyzing how to make each ride on Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run “not just fun, but beloved,” according to the Harvard Business Review.
“Anything I can do to help more guests say they love Disney is a valuable use of my time,” D’Amaro told the Harvard Business Review.
The new Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run mission will be tied to the release of the “The Mandalorian and Grogu” film coming out on Memorial Day Weekend.
Imagineering and Lucasfilm have been working together to come up with the new mission for Smugglers Run that ties into the new film’s narrative.
Imagineers captured scenes on the movie set of “The Mandalorian and Grogu” that will be used in the updated Smugglers Run attractions.
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