81 Days: Is Stitch Making His Final Great Escape?

I saw a rumor this morning from WDWThemeParks.com suggesting that Stitch's Great Escape will close towards the end of this year and re-open in 2018 as a new attraction. The rumor is classified as "Blue Sky," meaning it's just a rumor at this point, but I doubt anyone would be surprised to see Stitch leave Tomorrowland. It doesn't seem to be a hugely popular attraction, though if Disney fan social media is true to form it will attract a huge following the minute Disney announces its closure. Just watch :-) The fun question to me, though, is assuming a closure, what is the replacement? Let's play armchair Imagineer and put out a couple ideas.

My first thought for this spot was a Big Hero 6-themed attraction. It's right across the walkway from Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor and around the corner from Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, so another animated movie based attraction would provide some sort of flow to the area. It is a way to bring Marvel into the Magic Kingdom, which is a bit of a stick in the eye to Universal and as such much fun. The film is great and fun and colorful and would work great visually as an attraction. The setting is quasi-futuristic so it wouldn't be jarringly out of place, in my opinion. I'm not sure of the mechanics, though. I mean an entire year would be enough time to gut the present ride and create something new, as in not "theater-based," but Disney hasn't seemed to be in a start from scratch mode when updating or switching attractions lately. Which leads me to a second idea.....

What about a Tomorrowland-based attraction in Tomorrowland? I was telling the lovely and talented Lisa about this story and

my wish that somehow the Tomorrowland movie would be incorporated into Tomorrowland the Land, and she thought this would be a great fit. She's right. It would even work in its present configuration. The characters in Tomorrowland are transported to Tomorrowland by strapping into seats and having a shaking, sensory overloaded experience. That would completely work here. As Lisa suggested, you could even work in some sort of live-feed from a camera outside looking down the sidewalk toward Space Mountain as an ending shot. The downside to this idea is that the movie wasn't all that well received, but I loved it, so that should count for something, right?

What do you think? What would you put in Stitch's place? Or would you leave our little blue friend alone?