‘Beyond Big Thunder’: Everything we know (and what we don’t)

What is ‘beyond Big Thunder’?

The phrase “beyond Big Thunder” refers to an expansion of Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

Disney will build new attractions on currently undeveloped land, located passed Frontierland’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster, thus “beyond Big Thunder,” as seen in aerial photography by bioreconstruct throughout this story.

What attractions will Disney build?

What, precisely, does one find “beyond Big Thunder,” pray tell? Disney has not yet announced specific plans, but it named Disney villains, “Coco,” and “Encanto” as examples of “what could be” over the horizon line, as shown in the concept art below (which Disney stressed is a preliminary design, not indicative of the project’s final plan).

When Disney executives first teased the possibility of the expansion at D23 Expo 2022, they posed hypothetical questions to the audience:

• “What if we could climb onboard the back of [an] alebrije and fly into the land of the dead with our family, just like the Riveras in ‘Coco’?”
• “What if you could walk into the Madrigals’ casita [from ‘Encanto’]? … What if you could step up to a door and discover your own magical gift?”

Since then, Disney has implied “Encanto” might find a home at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park (as part of a Tropical Americas-themed overhaul of DinoLand, U.S.A.). This may or may not mean “Encanto” is still on the table for Magic Kingdom.

At this time, we don’t know what types of attractions Disney plans to build “beyond Big Thunder,” or on which movies the attractions will focus.

Where will Magic Kingdom expand, exactly?

Other than, well, beyond Big Thunder, Disney hasn’t indicated a specific site map for this expansion, but we can speculate with some clues.

The upcoming Magic Kingdom expansion will span 12-14 acres, according to the Orlando Sentinel. By comparison, the Sentinel noted, New Fantasyland — the 2009-2014 project that introduced attractions based on “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Dumbo,” “The Little Mermaid,” and “Beauty and the Beast” — increased the park’s size by 11 acres.

In the photo below, Big Thunder is the orange-brown structure in the center middle, with New Fantasyland’s added acreage to the right of the brightly-colored circus tents. No need to squint; we’re about to zoom in closer.

Using the scale the Sentinel mentioned as a barometer of sorts, we can see how an area about the size of New Fantasyland (excluding Storybook Circus, which was repurposed land rather than additional space) could be wedged into what are currently woods north of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Rivers of America.

As another comparison, Pandora – The World of Avatar at Animal Kingdom is 12 acres, while Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland Park and Disney’s Hollywood Studios is 14 acres.

The “beyond Big Thunder” expansion will almost certainly extend beyond the Walt Disney World Railroad track, which currently serves as the berm for most of the park.

Based on the size of the expansion, it remains to be seen whether the project will displace Floridian Way (a backstage road), but it’s unlikely to displace Floridian Place (a public road, which begins at the utmost north end of Walt Disney World property and eventually leads to Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa before merging with World Drive).

In any case, the expansion pad “beyond Big Thunder” is a significant parcel of land.

Where will guests enter and exit the Magic Kingdom expansion?

Disney hasn’t revealed exactly how the expansion will connect with existing Magic Kingdom areas.

Eyeballing the prospective area, possible passageways to the new attractions “beyond Big Thunder” could be located either between Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (top right of the photo below), or on the other side of the Rivers of America near Haunted Mansion (top left of photo below) if that attraction’s queue were reconfigured, or both. An entrance from Fantasyland isn’t impossible, but may be more cumbersome given how things are situated.

Depending on the extent of the redevelopment of existing land, it wouldn’t be completely unwarranted to imagine Tom Sawyer Island’s footprint decreasing, thus leading to a narrower Rivers of America and potentially new soil along the bend of Big Thunder that currently crests the water.

No matter where the expansion is built or how guests will access the new attractions once they open, Disney will likely have to contend with and adapt existing Magic Kingdom real estate in some capacity; be that backstage facilities, onstage areas, or both.

Is “beyond Big Thunder” actually happening?

Straying from tradition, Disney didn’t outright announce the “beyond Big Thunder” project. Instead, at D23 Expo 2022, three executives — Josh D’Amaro (chairman of Disney Experiences), Jennifer Lee (chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios), and Chris Beatty (creative portfolio executive at Walt Disney Imagineering) — shared potential plans for the Magic Kingdom expansion.

At Destination D23 2023, Bruce Vaughn (chief creative officer of Walt Disney Imagineering) joined D’Amaro to ever so briefly mention that “beyond Big Thunder” was still in the works.

At an Imagineering press event in April 2024, Michael Hundgen, a Walt Disney World site portfolio executive, again mentioned the expansion to invited guests. It seems that a handful of media outlets, including the Orlando Sentinel, took this as official confirmation that “beyond Big Thunder” has graduated from a hypothetical, and that Disney is committed to moving forward with the project. Just what the expansion will entail, though, is still unannounced at the time of this writing.

When will the attractions “beyond Big Thunder” open?

Unfortunately, it’s too early to speculate any opening time frames. Once construction begins (which it hasn’t yet), the new attractions may take several years to be built.

As a comparison, Disney’s turn-around on Pandora and Galaxy’s Edge were both almost exactly 3.5 years, when measuring the time between construction commencing and the lands opening.

Didn’t Disneyland expand like this recently?

Yes and no. Imagineers expanded Disneyland Park in California to add Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, which opened there in 2019 (along with its almost-twin counterpart in Florida). The placement of Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland is roughly the equivalent of where Disney will expand “beyond Big Thunder” at Magic Kingdom.

Below are aerial views of Magic Kingdom and Disneyland. In particular, note how the railroad track at Magic Kingdom (the thin pair of lines that begins in the photo as parallel to Big Thunder) currently travels a simple curve. That’s how Disneyland’s track previously looked in its equivalent of that spot; during the construction of Galaxy’s Edge, Imagineers rerouted Disneyland’s railroad track, winding the curve back and forth to accommodate the Galaxy’s Edge layout (and famously adding the first left turn in the attraction’s history).

The two plots aren’t exactly alike — for one, Big Thunder itself is located on opposite sides of the Rivers of America in California and Florida — but seeing how Imagineers tackled that project may give us some insight into what’s ahead for Magic Kingdom.

In the 2019 photos below by bioreconstruct, we can get a better idea of how Disneyland utilized a comparably-sized acreage as “beyond Big Thunder” to build new attractions.

Will anything close to make way for this expansion?

The “beyond Big Thunder” project is an expansion in every sense of the word. This new area will add acreage to Magic Kingdom rather than replace existing attractions. At this time, Disney has not announced that anything will permanently close at Magic Kingdom as a result of the expansion.

In the short term, it’s possible that several attractions may temporarily close to accommodate construction, depending on where exactly the expansion will be located. Such attractions may or may not include Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Tom Sawyer Island, Liberty Belle Riverboat, and the Walt Disney World Railroad. The last of those only just reopened in December 2022 following a four-year closure during the construction of Tron Lightcycle / Run, which occupied a portion of the train’s route.

When will Disney announce more information?

Disney frequently utilizes the Disney Parks Blog to announce major news about its theme parks.

In April 2024, the company debuted “We Call It Imagineering,” a recurring YouTube series with behind-the-scenes sneak peeks inside the past, present, and future of Disney attractions.

Aug. 10, 2024, D’Amaro will host the Disney Experiences Showcase (also known as “the parks panel”) at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event (formerly known as D23 Expo) in Anaheim, Calif. All ticket types for the event are sold out.

Disney may turn to any or all of these outlets — or another means — to distribute future information about the “beyond Big Thunder” expansion, though media who attended the April 2024 Imagineering event have reported that they were told to expect news during D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event.

Disney History Repeats Itself

Though Disney’s publicity approach for “beyond Big Thunder” is nontraditional, it’s not unprecedented. The company enlisted a similar tactic on a much larger scale in the ’90s; not just with one area of a park, but with two entire theme parks. Read more about how “beyond Big Thunder” echoes Disney history in our previous story:

Prep for D23: The Ultimate Fan Event

Going to D23: The Ultimate Fan Event this August? Check out our previous coverage for an overview of the event and some finer details to help plan your trip.

We also have dozens of videos from every single D23 Expo since the event’s inception in 2009 on the Attractions Magazine YouTube channel, from behind-the-scenes panels to celebrity announcements to cosplay. Here’s our playlist from D23 Expo 2022:

If you’re interested in visiting Walt Disney World Resort or Disneyland Resort, we recommend Mouse Fan Travel for a free, no obligation quote and free help throughout your trip.