Walt Disney said that Disneyland would always be in a state of becoming, and 70 years after Disneyland opened, and 25 years after Disney California Adventure opened, that has certainly proven true. Today, Disneyland Resort is in the early stages of one of the biggest transformations in its history, a massive expansion called DisneylandForward, and one of the most exciting elements of the expansion is the addition of two major attractions to Avengers Campus.
Avengers Infinity Defense, which will see a multiverse of Marvel heroes fight King Thanos, and Stark Flight Lab, which will see Robert Downey Jr. return as Tony Stark, are two rides coming to Disney California Adventure’s Avengers area. The show building, which will house both attractions, has been under construction for several months. However, yesterday, according to the Instagram post of a Disneyland Resort Cast Member, it hit a very special milestone, as Cast Members signed a steel beam that will then be raised into place as part of the building.
The beam signing is a tradition that goes back a long way. Traditionally, when it is time to place the beam that will be located at the highest point of a structure, Cast Members at Disneyland Resort add their autograph, as well as messages, before it goes up. The beam is rarely, if ever, in a place where it can be seen later, but those who signed it know it's there, and thus know they’ll be part of the attraction for decades to come.
This is a reasonably big moment in any attraction's development. Reaching the literal peak of construction means that while there’s still plenty of more work to be done, things are well on their way. Which leads to the question: when will it all be done?
At this point, neither Avengers Infinity Defense or Stark Flight Lab have any sort of opening date or even a season window to give us a general idea. Considering there’s still a lot of 2026 left to go, there’s a chance we could see something happen before the end of the year, but a 2027 opening date certainly seems more likely at this point.
Avengers Infinity Defense is the larger of the two rides, the E-ticket in theme park parlance. Its size alone would seem to indicate it will take quite a while before it's done. Maybe even 2027 is optimistic. That said, the ride system appears to be based on the same design as Peter Pan’s Never Land adventure at Tokyo DisneySea, which means Imagineers have done this before.
On the other side, Stark’s Flight Lab is a smaller attraction, but it's using a new twist on a Kuka arm design that will pick up ride vehicles from a track, shake them around, and then put them back on the track. It’s a design that likely doesn’t look to have a lot of margin for error. Maybe it will require more time.
While both rides will exist in the same show building, that doesn’t mean they’ll open at the same time. If one is ready long before the other, it will likely open in much the same way Rise of the Resistance opened several months after the rest of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
As far as when an announcement might come, the next D23 Event is set for this August, and it feels like a safe bet that it will be the place where we’ll get more information about the future of Avengers Campus and when we’ll get to experience all the fun.
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