A new piece in the OC Register outlines the unique approach Disney is taking to hire Cast Members for the upcoming ‘Avengers Campus’ themed land coming to Disney California Adventure this summer.
With each new themed land Disney introduces comes a new opportunity to tell a story like never before. From the edge of the galaxy and the Star Wars franchise to the alien moon of Pandora from Avatar, Disney has had a series of lands where they have tried to up the ante by making Cast Members part of the story. We saw that fall flat a bit with Pandora – The World of Avatar, but have seen more immersion in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge with the real stars of the show being the First Order Officers you encounter in Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
Now, Disney wants to go even further, challenging their Cast Members to become part of the Marvel story like never before at Avengers Campus. To create their 35-person test and adjust team, Disney abandoned the standard hiring process and demanded a bit more from the job candidates.
“We wanted to break that formula so that we can get the best of the cast and really showcase what is special about them,” said Disneyland project manager Michelle Sico, who helped create the Avengers Campus application and interview process. “We typically get a lot of the same thing over and over because of this formula that we’ve put together for recruiting people. We thought maybe if we make this more fun and we make this more story-driven, then maybe we’ll see more character in the résumés and interviews. I think we were successful in that.”
“For Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge we received hundreds of résumés and they all looked exactly the same,” said Sico, 34, of Fullerton. “So for this one, we really pushed them to show us how they were different. We received some unbelievable résumés.”
Karli Bull created a résumé that looked like a dossier for an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Marvel worldwide law-enforcement organization. It was stamped “Top Secret: Classified” and included details about her secret identity and super powers.
Avengers Campus job candidates who made it to the interview stage of the hiring process were assigned code names. Bull was Agent Armadillo.
After creating a backstory for themselves that lead to super hero names like Spotted Bull and Vortex, candidates were then tasked with trying to break into the interview room by solving a series of Marvel-themed puzzles that eventually earned them the code to the door.
A Marvel quiz greeted them when they made it inside the interview room, attempting to figure out if they were Team Captain America or Team Iron Man.
“I don’t think that we needed them to be Marvel experts, but we wanted them to be excited about superheroes and super powers,” Sico said. “It was obvious going through these interviews that everyone can relate to one of these characters in some way.”
“We wanted a special group who felt very passionate about bringing to life these superhero stories,” Sico said. “We wanted a team that can bring it alive for the guests. They had to really believe it. And that’s what we got.”
Avengers Campus opens this Summer at Disney California Adventure.
As a quick refresher, Avengers Campus is home to the Worldwide Engineering Brigade – also known as “WEB” – which will house a new Spider-Man experience, the first Disney ride-through attraction to feature this iconic superhero.
During an open house at WEB, the aspiring inventors are excited to invite you for a test drive of their latest invention: the “Web Slinger” vehicle, which allows you to sling webs just like Spider-Man! The attraction gives you a taste of what it’s like to have actual superpowers as you help Spider-Man collect Spider-Bots that have run amok.
Avengers Campus will also feature Pym Test Kitchen. Just as Ant-Man and The Wasp use “Pym Particles” to grow and shrink just about anything, Pym Technologies is using the latest innovations to grow and shrink food at this eatery.
You will also find heroic encounters throughout the campus, including Black Widow, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Doctor Strange, the Guardians of the Galaxy, superheroes from Wakanda and Asgard, and Iron Man.
As superheroes continue to assemble at the campus, one of its iconic buildings will be the Avengers Headquarters where you should be on the lookout for Avengers in action.
All of that is only phase one for the land, with Phase Two set to open in the coming years and feature the headliner Avengers E-Ticket ride that Disney has briefly touched on. We go into more detail on the attraction (HERE).
