Guide Tour of Production Courtyard, Walt Disney Studios Park, Disneyland Paris

Production Courtyard is a themed land at Walt Disney Studios Park in Disneyland Resort Paris. Production Courtyard’s theme revolves around the production aspect of Hollywood movies and the Hollywood mythos, including movie legends. The land contains two distinct parts: Hollywood Boulevard, which features Hollywood-inspired street sets and the ride The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – A New Dimension of Chills and Place des Stars themed around the production facilities of movie lots, containing Stitch Live!.

A large section of its original 2002 footprint as part of the park’s Hollywood Boulevard placemaking project, including the addition of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. It was development encompass the whole of Production Courtyard with a full Hollywood theme. In addition, one of the original attractions which opened with the park on 16 March 2002, Walt Disney Television Studios, was closed to become the Stitch Live! interactive CGI and the former attraction, Playhouse Disney Live on Stage shows.

Production Courtyard nowaday is one of the four studio lots/lands at Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris. It was significantly expanded in December 2007 with the opening of the Hollywood Boulevard street set, and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror thrill ride. In the Hollywood Boulevard, notable buildings include the Hollywood Tower Hotel, Disney Studio 1, and CinéMagique.

Production Courtyard is the section to the left and across from the Studio 1 exit. It includes the attractions located beyond the main square of the park, this same square is adorned with a statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse hand in hand.

In Stars Square, the show Dances with the Guardians of the Galaxy takes place, Star-Lord, Gamora and Groot perform it several times a day and offer visitors to dance alongside them to save the world. This is a show that combines humor and interaction with the public.

The Hollywood Boulevard, is the themed extension of Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, it was created with the opening of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. In the first part of the boulevard on either side, there are facades of buildings with shop windows, which are mostly a reconstruction of buildings actually existing in the United States. At the end of the boulevard, on the other hand, there are only panels used as trompe-l’oeil, to give the illusion that the boulevard is longer.

Studio Theater
Studio Theater (formerly Studio 2, it hosted CinéMagique until 2017), offers various shows, performances, encounters with characters or films depending on the theme seasons or events in the park.

Disney Junior’s Dream Factory is a show offered in Studio D. The show features Mickey, Minnie, Timon and their Disney Junior friends in a steampunk setting.

Stitch Live!
Stitch Live is an attraction where the character of Stitch interacts with the spectators present in the room. It enables live dialogue with the animated character on a screen. Guests are seated in a movie theater-like room, called the Space Traffic Control. Children are then encouraged to sit up front, on the floor, so that Stitch can see them during the show. At the start of the show, the host of the Space Traffic Control requests the computer to search for an available spacecraft captain to talk to; the computer connects to the spacecraft which Stitch is in. After that, guests in the Space Traffic Control are randomly chosen by Stitch to interact with.

Stitch can interact with guests in many ways such as chatting, singing them a song with his ukulele and even take their pictures. Stitch looks, moves and sounds much like he does in the films and Lilo & Stitch: The Series, complete with corresponding facial expressions, gestures, and vocals.

Tower of Terror
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, is a series of similar accelerated drop tower dark rides. Storyline takes place in the fictional Hotel Hightower, riders in a seemingly ordinary hotel elevator, and present a fictional backstory in which people have mysteriously disappeared from the elevator under the influence of a supernatural element many years previously.

After guests are loaded into the elevator, the doors close, the lights dim and the elevator starts to ascend. Rod Serling’s voice greets passengers to “a most uncommon elevator about to ascend into your very own episode of The Twilight Zone”. The elevator stops and doors open to reveal a dimly-lit hotel corridor, with a single window at the end. The ghosts of the five missing passengers appear, beckoning the guests to join them before disappearing in a burst of electricity. The corridor fades to darkness and transforms into a field of stars, with the window intact until it floats forward and morphs into the window from the Season 5 opening sequence, and breaks.

The elevator doors close and the car continues its ascent, once more, opening its doors open to a maintenance room. The elevator car exits from the lift shaft horizontally into the room, which slowly fades into darkness as it turns into The Fifth Dimension, an element countlessly referred by Serling in The Twilight Zone. Now, in total darkness, the car reaches a field of stars which splits open and the elevator enters a pitch-black vertical shaft.

As Serling’s narration ends the elevator begins the drop sequence at a top speed of 39 miles per hour (63 km/h). At least once during the drop sequence, wide elevator doors in front of the riders open to reveal a view of the park, where the on-ride camera captures the in-ride photograph and video. One of four randomized profiles of drops and lifts are selected by a computer, where the ride vehicle drops or rises various lengths at different intervals. Some effects include projected images of the breaking window, wind effects, lightning flashes, and ominous blue-lit figures of the five ghostly original riders.

Once the elevator finishes its sequence, the car backs up into the hotel basement. A short clip plays, showing elements from the Season 5 opening sequence, along with the 1939 elevator passengers and Rod Serling falling into the “vortex” seen in the Season 3 opening sequence. Serling welcomes back the guests and sends them off after their “visit” to the hotel, as he would normally close an episode of The Twilight Zone. The car rotates and parks itself at the exit doors that lead to the unload area. Guests exit the elevator, leaving the hotel through the gift shop. After leaving the elevator, guests are led through a hotel corridor towards an old “Lost & Found” desk of the hotel, converted to display the on-ride photographs, serviced by Disney PhotoPass.

Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular
Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular (also known as Star Wars: A Galactic Celebration) is a nighttime show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World. The show is based on the Star Wars film series and features fireworks, projection mapping, fire, lasers, fog effects, and searchlights. The show debuted at Walt Disney Studios Park in Disneyland Paris on January 14, 2017, where the imagery is projected onto The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror on Production Courtyard.

A Galactic Spectacular begins with a brief narrated prologue of the 1977 premiere of Star Wars at Tower of Terror. The main show is divided into segments dedicated to battles, heroes, creatures, romance, and villains. The dramatic opening shot from A New Hope begins the sequence showing various battle scenes from Takodana, Hoth, Jakku, the Death Star, and Starkiller Base. The next segment, dedicated to the series’ heroes, featuring Rey, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and ending with the Millennium Falcon escape scenes.

Three brief segments follow then after; a cantina segment dedicated to the creatures and aliens from the series, a segment dedicated to the Force with Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and a romance segment with Han Solo, Leia Organa, Anakin Skywalker, and Padmé Amidala. A darker sequence is followed, recreating the fiery lightsaber battle between Anakin and Kenobi on Mustafar.

The scene segues into a segment dedicated to the villains of the series, including Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Palpatine, Supreme Leader Snoke, and Kylo Ren. The trench run attacks on the Death Star and Starkiller Base are then played out as the finale sequence. The show concludes with a montage of all nine original Star Wars film poster art collaged across the Tower of Terror.

Walt Disney Studios Park
Walt Disney Studios Park, located in the Val d’Europe sector in Marne-la-Vallée, in Seine-et-Marne, is the second of two theme parks built at Disneyland Paris, which opened on 16 March 2002. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, Experiences and Products division. It is dedicated to show business, movie themes, production, and behind-the-scenes.

Walt Disney Studios Park is part of the Disneyland Paris leisure complex, formerly called Euro Disney Resort then Disneyland Resort Paris. The park is represented by the Earffel Tower, a water tower similar to one that was installed at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California. In the 2010s, the park began to entered a new direction of immersive theming and attraction development inspired by iconic Disney stories.

In 2019, the park hosted approximately 5.2 million visitors, which places it in 4th place in Europe and 23rd in the world 3. Since its opening, it has twice been honored with a Thea Award, this is a global award given by the Themed Entertainment Association. The park was awarded the first time in 2003 in the attraction category for CinéMagique and the second time in 2015 in the thematic restaurant category for the Bistrot Chez Rémy.