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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 |
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Every Disney theme park has some sort of entry street or plaza, with a large souvenir store and at least one place to eat. The original Disneyland Park in Southern California has Main Street, U.S.A., a convincing small town street of the American Midwest, circa 1900. Tokyo Disneyland has World Bazaar in the tradition of Main Street, U.S.A., but under a large glass canopy roof to protect guests from the weather. Disney’s Hollywood Studios has an idealized Hollywood Boulevard of the 1930s. |
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Yester Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris also has a Hollywood Boulevard, but this one is inside a huge soundstage. They’re making a movie in there, using sets based on Hollywood Boulevard from the 1920s to 1950s — or at least that’s the story. Maybe you’ll even see them filming. |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 Place des Frères Lumière and the front entrance to Disney Studio 1 |
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You passed the turnstiles into Yester Walt Disney Studios Park. Unless you want to exit immediately, there’s only one way to go. Disney Studio 1, a huge soundstage, stands between you and the rest of the park. |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 Looking down Hollywood Boulevard |
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Once you’re inside, you could just make a beeline to the other end, but take some time to look around. It soon becomes apparent that all these façades are just here to dress up a big fast food eatery and a big souvenir shop. |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 Façades |
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On the right side, Restaurant en Coulisse is a fast food restaurant with seating spread behind façades of actual and made-up Hollywood restaurants: Schwab’s Pharmacy, The Brown Derby, Club Swankedero, Gunga Den, The Hep Cat Club, and Liki Tiki. You might be reminded of Hollywood & Dine at Yester Disney California Adventure. |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 Schwab’s Pharmacy |
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You may wonder why a pharmacy is on the restaurant side. A soda counter is a restaurant of sorts. Legend has it that actress Lana Turner was discovered by director Mervyn LeRoy at the soda counter at the real Schwab’s in Hollywood. According to Turner, neither Schwab’s nor LeRoy had a role in her being discovered, but the long-defunct Schwab’s Pharmacy remains famous. |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2005 The Brown Derby, based on the famous Hollywood restaurant, not the one shaped like a hat |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2005 Another angle on The Brown Derby |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 Gunga Den bar, a play on Gunga Din, and Club Swankadero, a tribute to Hollywood nightclubs |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 The Hep Kat Club, a tribute to jazz clubs of the 1950s |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 Liki Tiki, a tribute to California tiki bars |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 Restaurant en Coulisse fast food counter |
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If you expect carefully recreated restaurants behind the façades, you’ll be disappointed. Although some theming continues, such as celebrity caricatures behind the façade of The Brown Derby, the right side of Disney Studio 1 is just a big counter-service fast food restaurant. On the left side, Les Légends d’Hollywood is a big souvenir store — essentially this park’s version of the Disneyland Emporium — with entrances through a number of Hollywood façades: Shutterbugs, Glamour Girl Cosmetics, Alexandria Theater, Hollywood and Vine Five & Dime, The Gossip Column, and Last Chance Gas. |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 Shutterbugs, based on The Darkroom on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2005 Shutterbugs and Glamour Girl |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2005 The Gossip Column and Last Chance Gas |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2017 Last Chance Gas, with a Hertz billboard behind it |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2005 Filming in progress |
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Disney Studio 1 isn’t just an eatery and a shop. Your guidemap indicates it’s also an attraction. You can watch a crew filming a movie called Lights, Camera, Hollywood! Filming began in 2002, so this is a long production. You might want to watch for a few minutes, but then head to opposite doors from where you entered. |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2005 Production Courtyard, on the park side of Disney Studio 1 |
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After you exit from Disney Studio 1, you’re in the park’s core, Production Courtyard. It’s an expanse of pavement with several “big box” soundstages. You’ll return here when it’s time to exit from the park through Studio 1. If the year is 2002, that will probably be very soon, because there’s not much to do in this park. |
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Walt Disney Studios Park, with Disney Studio 1 as its entrance “street,” opened on March 16, 2002 at Disneyland Paris, adjacent to Disneyland Park. Having a warehouse-like box at the entrance for shopping and food service — ostensibly a studio soundstage where a movie about Hollywood Boulevard is being filmed — allowed the designers to satisfy two goals: The enclosed space protected guests from the less-than-ideal weather of Paris, while also being relatively inexpensive to build at a park with a low initial development budget. The movie studio theme meant that industrial architecture with a few Art Déco flourishes would be sufficient. |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2001 Disney Studio 1under construction |
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Although real soundstages in Hollywood, Culver City, and Burbank look even more industrial, that doesn’t matter. Disney theme park guests expect delightful, magical, immersive places, but that’s not what Walt Disney Studios Park offered. In the two decades after the park opened, Disney expanded and improved the park. New attractions included The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror in 2007, Toy Story Playland in 2010, and Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy in 2014. In 2018, Disney announced a 2 billion euro expansion, with lands themed to Marvel, Frozen, and Star Wars (although Star Wars was later put on hold). In all this time, Disney Studio 1 remained relatively unchanged. On July 23, 2023, a French blog, Outsidears, revealed that Disney Studio 1 would be transformed into a new experience. Although the Disney Studio 1 structure would be reused and would still serve as the park entrance and exit, a new Hollywood premiere garden party theme would replace the old movie production theme. Construction walls went up outside Disney Studio 1 in October 2023. Part of the project was to build a new temporary entrance to the park through the alley between Disney Studio 1 and the Studio Theater, the current home of TOGETHER: a Pixar Musical Adventure, and formerly the CinéMagique theater. On April 12, 2024, Disney announced Walt Disney Studios Park would be renamed Disney Adventure World, but not until World of Frozen eventually opens. The press release included concept art for the former Disney Studio 1. |
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Artist concept only © Disney Glamorous film premiere… |
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Artist concept only © Disney …in the heart of Hollywood on a starry night |
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Guests will still face a huge soundstage building at the park entrance, but what’s inside the building and even its name will change. The press release provided some details: After passing through the turnstiles, guests will be transported into a vibrant, contemporary open-air movie studio before becoming special guests of a glamorous film premiere in the heart of Hollywood on a starry night. To bring this all-new immersive experience to life, the interior décor of the “soundstage” — which currently depicts a filming scene on Hollywood Boulevard — will be replaced with crafted décor that pays homage to historic movie theaters in Hollywood and the entertainment industry as a whole. The new entrance building, renamed World Premiere, will reopen in Spring 2025. The final day of operation for Disney Studio 1, including Restaurant en Coulisse and Les Légends d’Hollywood, was April 24, 2024. The following day, guests passing between the entrance plaza and the rest of the park had to use the bypass. |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2024 Studio 1 behind a construction wall from Place des Frères Lumière |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2024 Directing guests to the temporary bypass route |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2024 Bypass route with a white line and arrows for pedestrian traffic control |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2024 Construction walls |
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Production Courtyard will become World Premiere Plaza, an Art Déco-inspired theater district. All the construction is an inconvenience, but when the Disney Studio 1 and Production Courtyard transformations are done, along with the opening of World of Frozen and other enhancements, Disney Adventure World will be a better park than Walt Disney Studios Park ever was. |
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Photo Werner Weiss, 2024 Walt Disney Studios Store |
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Les Légends d’Hollywood store is gone, but the temporary bypass leads directly to Walt Disney Studios Store, another store positioned like the Disneyland Emporium. Guests exiting from any Disney park always have the opportunity to spend money. |
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© 2024 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks Updated May 17, 2024 |
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