Deja Knows Best: The Disney Legend Called In to Help Create Villains Land at Magic Kingdom
Considering he is responsible for three key villains in the pantheon of Disney baddies, it makes sense.
If you’re creating a land dedicated to Disney villains (like the one coming to Magic Kingdom), who better to call upon than a Disney Legend responsible for handcrafting some of the most popular vile characters that we’ve come to know and love.
What’s Happening:
- A special panel was held over the weekend at San Diego Comic-Con with the iconic animator, Andreas Deja, celebrating the Disney Villains.
- If you don’t know his name, you certainly know his work. Deja was the supervising animator overseeing the animation of a number of Disney Characters in what is commonly referred to as the Disney Renaissance, but most widely known for his work on three key Disney Villains - Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, Jafar from Aladdin, and Scar from the Lion King.
- Afterward, we were invited to a special Q&A session with the Disney Legend, where he confirmed that his expertise crafting the big bads of the Disney animated worlds has been called upon to create those worlds in real life for the upcoming “Villains Land" at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.
- Obviously, Deja couldn’t talk much about the project, only letting us know that he is part of the team bringing Villains Land to life, commenting that it’s an idea “whose time has come."
- Check out the moment in our video below.
- While he may be more directly involved with Villains Land at Walt Disney World, he is certainly no stranger to projects at Walt Disney Imagineering. Last year, he stopped by the division to check out progress on an attraction based on The Lion King that will be coming to Disney Adventure World in Paris.
- A land (or park) based on Disney Villains has been largely talked about since the 90s, but it was at the 2022 D23 Expo that Imagineering first teased a land based on Disney Villains coming to the Magic Kingdom as a possibility of what could lie “Beyond Big Thunder" in their infamous “What if" presentations/announcements. It was last year at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event that saw the official reveal that this land is in fact coming to Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.
- As we already mentioned, Deja is a great fit given his legendary status in the medium of animation, as well as his intimate knowledge of three of the most popular Disney villains of all time, having created them.
- That said, he is also responsible for many other characters, including Lilo from Lilo & Stitch, Hercules from the movie of the same name, Roger Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, King Triton in The Little Mermaid, and let’s not forget the villainous turn he gave to Mickey Mouse himself in the all-but-forgotten short, Runaway Brain. Oh, and he did the animation on Yzma (another classic villain) when the film was known as Kingdom of the Sun, before it became The Emperor’s New Groove, with Yzma being handed over to Dale Baer.
- During the Q&A session, Deja also told a number of stories from behind the scenes on many of your favorite films. You can hear similar stories in our videos below from the CTN Expo, celebrating the art of animation each year in Burbank.
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