Before he headed up Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige was a self-described shy kid who loved Space Mountain and called “Star Wars” and Disney parks his two great loves.
Before she won an Academy Award for “Frozen,” the film’s writer and director and former Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Jennifer Lee, was a self-described “spinning wild child” who loved Cinderella and fairytales.
Fans know the worlds Feige and Lee built. Now a new documentary by Oscar- and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Leslie Iwerks wants to connect audiences with the worldbuilders.
“More than anything else, every theme park attraction that exists exists because a great storyteller told a great story. It's that simple,” Disney Legend, Senior Advisor and former CEO
Bob Iger, said in “Disney Worldbuilders," premiering Aug. 20 on Disney+.
The backstory
Filmmaker Iwerks knows all about being behind the scenes.
Not only has she built a career behind the camera, but her dad (Disney Legend Don Iwerks) and grandfather (Disney Legend Ub Iwerks) also spent their careers bringing stories to life behind the scenes.
"Now I'm sort of telling other people's stories of how they grew up behind the scenes or just inspired by (Disney), and then ultimately how they have created their own success stories,” Iwerks told USA TODAY.
The profiles in her new film include childhood photos, home videos, and personal anecdotes about the storytellers as young Disney fans.
Pixar Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter said he'd spend months planning for his family’s visits to Disneyland, where, as a kid, he tried to capture memories on his Super 8 camera.
While strolling through Disney California Adventure’s Pixar Pier in Iwerks' film, Docter recalled crying the first time he saw a Woody character walking around. “Probably (the) greatest compliment you could give any of us was ‘We’re going to make an attraction out of your movie and put it in Disneyland,’” he said.
Pixar experiences now permeate Disney’s parks and cruise ships, and Disney is in the midst of building a new Monstropolis at Disney’s Hollywood Studios with Disney's first suspended coaster.
“I think it was in 1999, when we first came up with the door vault as a concept, and it was literally like 30 seconds until we were like, 'That would make a great theme park attraction!'" Docter said. "For one reason or another, whether the technology wasn’t there or the budget wasn’t quite right, it just kept getting postponed ... so it’s very exciting now that they’re finally building it.”
Bringing stories to life
Disney Legend and Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron recalls when Pandora - The World of Avatar was being built at Disney's Animal Kingdom.
"I remember all the concrete foundations and all the girders and all that, but all that goes away when you see it finished," he said in the film. He called the experience on the Avatar Flight of Passage ride profound. "You feel connected. You feel a powerful sense of something happening inside you emotionally. On a five-minute ride? I mean it would take me two hours in a movie to get you to that point.”
Disney is building a second Avatar-inspired land at Disney California Adventure, but no opening date has been announced yet.
When Hong Kong Disneyland's World of Frozen opened in 2023, Lee told USA TODAY, “I'm just still so emotional and so grateful that Disney has decided that this deserves a land." She got choked up again exploring the recently opened World of Frozen at Disneyland Paris' Disney Adventure World.
“It’s this amazing responsibility. It’s also this amazing opportunity," Walt Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer Jared Bush affirmed in the film. He's worked on "Zootopia," which has a land at Shanghai Disneyland, "Moana," which has a walkthrough attraction at EPCOT, and "Encanto," whose first attraction is being built at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
"The bar is a timeless story that will be loved worldwide forever? That’s a tricky thing to be asked to attempt to do, but how wonderful that that’s the hope."
Disney Legend, filmmaker and executive producer Jon Favreau faced a slightly different challenge, building out the already beloved "Star Wars" universe with "The Mandalorian," for which he's received multiple Emmy nominations. Disney fans can sometimes resist changesto what they love.
“You're adhering to what came before, but trying to forward it and progress it, sometimes with new technology, sometimes updating it for these times, but still preserving what made it a world to begin with and what was created before you,” Favreau said in the film, which at multiple points reminded viewers of Walt Disney's own willingness to change, innovate and grow.
Favreau and Lucasfilm President and Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni, who's also featured, recently helped Disney Imagineers make Mandalorian and Grogu additions to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
The next chapter
Iwerks told USA TODAY, “The common denominator with everyone I interviewed, everyone that's in this film, is that they all believe that storytelling is first, and quality is of the utmost importance and authenticity and detail. And that's what makes all these attractions so beloved is the fact that there's no cutting corners or at least no one wants to cut a corner ... They want to tell the best stories possible.”
Viewers get glimpses of two upcoming Disney parks projects in the film.
▶ The first is the Avengers Campus expansion underway at Disney California Adventure. When it opens in 2028, it will double the land’s footprint and add two new attractions featuring familiar faces from Marvel’s films.
“I think this is much bigger than most people are anticipating,” Feige said in a film clip revealing part of the massive construction site.
▶ The film’s second sneak peek is brief, but hints at plans for the new Disney theme park coming to Abu Dhabi, suggesting a shift away from the Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, Adventureland-style structure of Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, in favor of lands inspired by United Arab Emirates biomes.
"To witness and document the meetings and the pitch meetings and the ideation behind a new theme park was fascinating,” Iwerks said without spilling any secrets. “And I just know that also at every level, creativity is an iterative process, and it's fascinating to kind of see that process in all these different facets, from a film to a theme park to an attraction.”
Disney has said the new park will be “authentically Disney and distinctly Emirati.” At the time of the park’s announcement in 2025, then Disney Experiences Chairman, now Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, told USA TODAY, “We've got an opportunity here to build from the ground up and really put on display all of this ambition, all this innovation, all this new technology that we have at hand to create something incredibly special for our fans.”
Iwerks hopes perhaps some fans watching her new film will become Disney’s next generation of storytellers.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Disney's top storytellers reveal the secrets behind the magic
