Disney Parks Boss Josh D'Amaro talks more about Disney's plans for Indiana Jones at Disney's Animal Kingdom

Nov 20, 2023 in "Disney's Animal Kingdom"

Gallery / 6 Photos
Tropical Americas Encanto land concept art at Disney's Animal Kingdom

Posted: Monday November 20, 2023 3:20pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

In a new interview with EW, Disney Parks Chairman Josh D'Amaro discusses Disney's early plans to bring Indiana Jones to Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World.

D'Amaro first revealed early plans for Indiana Jones to come to Disney's Animal Kingdom during a D23 fan event this past September.

The new land themed to the tropical Americas would replace the entire Dino-Land U.S.A. area, with Indiana Jones replacing the existing Dinosaur ride, and Encanto replacing Dino-Rama.

Dinosaur is replaced in this concept art with Indiana Jones

Fans were surprised by D'Amaro revealing blue-sky concepts still in the early planning stages and not green-lit. D'Amaro told EW, "We've got so many stories to tell, we have so many things we want to make even better in the theme parks. My plan is to continue to share that with the guests. I know people are like, 'My gosh, I can't believe he's saying this. Is he serious, is he not?' The answer is, we are absolutely serious."

Imagineering Boss Bruce Vaughn said at Destination D23, "Imagine a land filled with authentic experiences from this part of the world. With all of the placemaking and storytelling you'd expect. Look, it's a beautiful region to explore and has been the inspiration for so many magical stories over the years. We're looking forward to bringing all of that to life."

Tropical Americas Encanto land concept art at Disney's Animal Kingdom

Vaughn continued, "Imagineering has been talking about stories from this part of the world; Encanto with Indiana Jones just rose to the top. They give us so much to play with. We have a long way to go now and a lot more to discover. But our team here in Florida is all over it."

New experiences inspired by “Encanto” – the Academy Award winning Walt Disney Animation Studios film – and the fan-favorite adventurer Indiana Jones are being considered for the reimagined land at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

D'Amaro's latest comments to EW today suggest that Indiana Jones remains at the forefront of Disney's plans in Florida, and the parks chairman is talking up Disney's ambitions.

"We know what this business is capable of, we know what our fans expect of us, and we're going all in. You're going to see more and more of that. As we make our way through some of these ideas, some of them will become real, and we'll say that's specifically what we're going to do, but I want our guests to be on the journey with us."

D'Amaro also addressed how Indiana Jones may fit into Disney's Animal Kingdom thematically. Much like when Avatar was announced for the park, fans are skeptical about its suitability for a part centered around nature and conservation.

"Animal Kingdom is about exploration and adventure," he says. "I was fortunate enough to have run that theme park, so I know how special it is, and I think there are a lot of stories that we can stay true to Animal Kingdom and express new properties in there, and that's what you see us starting to do."

You can read the full interview at EW.

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JD801 day ago

That carousel is going to look gorgeous at night (assuming the park is open past sunset).

James Alucobond1 day ago

They removed it a while ago when they released the new wave of art. The outlining bushes remaining in the art are fun to take note of, though. https://www.wdwmagic.com/attractions/animal-kingdom/gallery/11aug2024-tropical-americas-pueblo-esperanza-concept-art.htm#&gid=1&pid=1

Gremlin Gus1 day ago

They removed it when they showed off the concept art at last year's D23, and funnily enough, you can kind of see where the river used to be with the plants around the river still there in the concept art. Kind of sucks that they removed as it does look cool, but eh, I can live without it.

Timothy_Q1 day ago

Worth pointing out they removed the pink river in front of Casita in the concept art

EagleScout6101 day ago

https://mickeyblog.com/2025/03/28/photos-new-tropical-americas-signage-makes-its-way-to-disneys-animal-kingdom/

Disney Analyst2 days ago

I was mostly curious if anyone knows whether it's the ride system, or other errors causing downtime (i.e. peoples items falling onto track, etc.). We may have had times where we had lightning lanes switched to Multiple Experience passes due to downtime, but I honestly didn't keep track well enough to remember which ride gave us that pass, how long it was down, etc. All I know is ride downtime never impacted us in any real way. Apart from Rise going down a lot our first day.

Timothy_Q2 days ago

Also retheming Dinosaur to Indy doesn't mean the ride will suddenly get the same downtime DL Indy usually has There's no correlation between the 2 things

UNCgolf2 days ago

They may update some of the computer systems/controls, but they aren't going to replace the ride system with something else.

MisterPenguin2 days ago

The vehicles are on a track. They'll build the new 'story' around where those tracks go. They won't change the current placement of the tracks. The movement of the vehicles then get programmed as to stop and go and sideways spine breakers.

rle4lunch2 days ago

You got very lucky with your visit. When we were living in San Diego, we'd visit every few months and the ride is regularly down at least once daily (for hours at a time). I'd say in the last 10 years of riding it, we've had it break while riding at least 3 times and were given complementary fast passes for a different ride at least 10 times for it.

Disney Analyst2 days ago

How much of the downtime at Disneyland is due to the ride system, and not other circumstances? I can say on our trip last year, we never had an issue riding Indy.

Giss Neric2 days ago

I would expect they would at least upgrade the ride system knowing how much downtime the Indy ride at Disneyland has on a regular basis. Indy for sure will have more complex show scenes than Dinosaur.