Disney's 2025 Accelerator Demo Day Highlights the Future of Tech in Storytelling
Learn how Disney is partnering with companies to create new ways to immerse fans into their favorite stories.
Recently, Disney hosted their 2025 Accelerator Demo Day highlighting the use of technology in storytelling.
What’s Happening:
- The Walt Disney Company hosted its 2025 Disney Accelerator Demo Day on the Walt Disney Studios lot.
- The event highlights innovation in immersive storytelling from four growth-stage companies, including Animaj, DramaBox, Haddy, and LIMINAL Space.
- Disney executives and company founders discussed collaborations using new technologies to and how it can be implemented in storytelling experiences from the House of Mouse
- Demos featured virtual and physical showcases, including multiplatform children’s entertainment, 3D printing, and holographic displays.
- Disney Accelerator aims at partnering with innovative companies to expand storytelling across digital and physical experiences.
- Animaj, a next-generation media company, developing digital-first global franchises for children.
- Using AI-assisted production, the company strives to streamline workflows while keeping creators central to storytelling.
- Alongside Disney Branded Television and Disney Television Studios, Animaj and Disney are co-developing a new series of multiplatform animated shorts.
- DramaBox was also in attendance as the global leader in vertical, short-form “micro drama” entertainment.
- The company is in talks with Disney Publishing to adapt young-adult fantasy novels into original micro dramas for Disney platforms.
- They are also collaborating with Disney Music Group to adapt albums into vertical video shorts, merging storytelling and music.
- Haddy, an AI-powered industrial 3D-printing company, is working to create large-scale, customizable environments.
- The technology could be used for rapid, cost-effective, and sustainable fabrication for attractions, film, and theatre.
- They are partnering with Walt Disney Imagineering research & development department to explore 3D-printed props and set pieces for Disney Parks.
- The innovations are about promoting waste reduction through recyclable materials and reusability.
- LIMINAL Space is a developer of holographic 3D LED displays that create fully immersive environments using modular “Ghost Tile” and “Spirit Tile” technology.
- During the event, the company demonstrated a collaboration with Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) featuring Marvel Studios’ Rocket Raccoon, combining ILM’s markerless motion capture with LIMINAL’s spatial LED system for real-time interaction.
- They are also exploring additional applications with Walt Disney Imagineering R&D and Disney Experiences to enhance attractions and immersive experiences.
- It’s fun to see what amazing tech is being explored for the Disney entertainment, and it’ll be fun to see if these new projects are implemented in any of the upcoming Disney Parks projects opening around the world.
- Maybe we will see these innovations in Magic Kingdom’s upcoming Villains Land or Hong Kong Disneyland's Avengers Tower of Terror.
What They’re Saying:
- Bonnie Rosen, General Manager, Disney Accelerator: “Walt Disney always embraced the latest technologies to propel new ways of storytelling, and the company thrived by regularly working hand-in-hand with others who shared a vision of creating a brighter tomorrow. The Disney Accelerator is a modern extension of that spirit, bringing together bold entrepreneurs and Disney teams to explore new ideas and emerging technologies and businesses as they shape the future of entertainment. Every year, we are inspired by the ingenuity and passion of our Accelerator participants as they work alongside Disney’s brilliant creatives. Together, they build on Disney’s legacy of innovation and collaboration to delight the young at heart across the globe,”
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