The film, directed by Academy Award and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Leslie Iwerks, will receive its debut screening at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event in Anaheim, California, on August 16. It is scheduled to stream on Disney+ from August 20. The production looks behind the walls of Disney’s theme park development programme, including projects that have yet to open.
The documentary arrives as Disney advances plans for its seventh global theme park resort on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. The waterfront development, announced in May 2025, will be Disney’s first theme park destination in the Middle East and its first new resort market since Shanghai Disneyland opened in 2016.
Disney Worldbuilders* explores how filmmakers, artists, engineers and Imagineers convert fictional worlds into attractions that visitors can physically enter. It also moves beyond completed parks to examine lands, experiences and technologies now taking shape, giving the Abu Dhabi project added significance as Disney designs an entirely new destination rather than expanding an existing resort.
Among those appearing in the documentary are Disney chief executive Josh D’Amaro, former chief executive Bob Iger, filmmaker James Cameron, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, Lucasfilm president and chief creative officer Dave Filoni, filmmaker Jon Favreau and Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter. Jennifer Lee and Walt Disney Animation Studios chief creative officer Jared Bush also feature.
Iwerks has previously explored the company’s creative history through projects including The Imagineering Story and Disneyland Handcrafted. Her family has longstanding links with Disney. Her grandfather, Ub Iwerks, was Walt Disney’s early artistic partner and a key figure in the development of Mickey Mouse, while her father, Don Iwerks, became known for technological innovations used in Disney attractions and filmmaking.
The Abu Dhabi resort is being developed under an unusual structure for Disney. Miral will fund, develop, build and operate the destination, while Disney and Walt Disney Imagineering will oversee creative design and provide operational guidance. The arrangement allows Disney to extend its global theme park presence without financing construction under the conventional model used at several of its wholly or partly owned resorts.
The park will occupy a waterfront location on Yas Island, already home to Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi, SeaWorld Yas Island, Abu Dhabi and Yas Waterworld. Disney has said the resort will include themed accommodation as well as entertainment, dining, shopping and attractions built around its characters and franchises.
Disney has not disclosed the park’s final footprint, attraction roster or opening date. The design phase remains under way, with a full-scale Disney resort typically requiring one to two years of design work followed by several years of construction. That timetable has prompted expectations that Disneyland Abu Dhabi could open during the early 2030s, although no formal year has been announced.
Iger toured the prospective Yas Island site in January, publishing photographs of the undeveloped waterfront and saying there was “lots of work ahead”. Disney has described the planned resort as both authentically Disney and distinctly Emirati, with architecture, technology and storytelling designed around the characteristics of Abu Dhabi and its coastal setting.
The company has also positioned Abu Dhabi as a testing ground for a new generation of theme park technologies. Disney executives have said the destination is intended to become the most advanced and interactive resort in the group’s portfolio. Work across Imagineering includes increasingly sophisticated robotics, digital environments and interactive characters, technologies that can be tested elsewhere before being incorporated into the new park.
Disney’s choice of Yas Island gives the company access to a large catchment extending across the Gulf, South Asia, Africa and Europe. Abu Dhabi has spent years expanding the island as an international leisure hub, combining branded theme parks with hotels, sporting venues and major events.
Follow Arabian Post
Select Arabian Post as your preferred source on Google and MSN News for trusted business news and Arab politics and updates.
