Epcot’s Norway Film Replacement Still In Negotiations

Earlier this year the Norwegian press began criticizing the handling of the Norway pavilion at Epcot under Disney’s ownership. Essentially the country of Norway used to fund the pavilion but bailed out a several years ago. That sparked more recent activity by Disney to seek out sponsors for a possible redesign to a more generalized Scandinavian pavilion instead of a dedicated Norway pavilion. (Note: That plan would have been returning to the original design of the pavilion before Norway became the sole country in the original group able to provide funding. You can read about the full history of the pavilion in the Epcot Explorer’s Encyclopedia if you’re interested. Disclosure: This little blogger wrote that little book.)

That idea seemingly fell through and Norway managed to keep its exclusive pavilion, for the time being, while Disney and Norway hashed out plans to upgrade the pavilion. Earlier this year the negotiations fell apart as Norway offered a promotional film (YouTube Link: Norway: Powered by Nature) which they created for tourism purposes and were going to allow Disney to rework to fit the post-ride film portion of the Maelstrom attraction. Imagineering flat out rejected the film being offered by the country’s tourism bureau and wanted funding from the country to produce a new film. This garnered more criticism in the Norwegian media and a call for action from the internet community to rally support. Disney was demanding money to create their own film and Norway didn’t want to pay for it – that’s where things stood as of early summer and it seemed they were going to remain in that standoff.

Recently however, we’ve learned Disney has contacted the co-director and producer of Norway: Powered by Nature, Truels Zeiner-Henriksen, and requested information about rights to pursue the film for the pavilion as recently as late July. As of late August, the requested information had been provided by the filmmaker but there has been no further action yet by Disney.

So where does the project to update the Norway pavilion stand? Very much still in limbo, but the most recent developments suggest it’s not entirely off Disney’s radar. Further, the most recent move by Disney suggest that the social-media push earlier this year likely rekindled the company’s interest in the project. If you want to support the push to pull Norway out of the 80’s you can join the Facebook page to support the pavilion (it’s written primarily in Norwegian) or write to Disney expressing your desire to see the pavilion updated.

We’ll keep tracking this story and let you know if anything comes of it – be it a new film, rethemed pavilion, or nothing at all.