Happy Anniversary Star Tours - All The History You Need
Today marks the anniversary of one of the most popular attractions in Disneyland, Star Tours . It opened on January 9, 1987. In the beginning, this race through space attraction wasn’t what it turned out to be. Originally, Disney was making a ride simulator attraction based on their sci-fi film The Black Hole (1979). With an estimated cost of $50 million, Disney felt it was too high of a price for a film that was only so-so in popularity. Heck, the movie only cost $20 million to produce and it only made $35 million at the box office. Disney decided to go another route. They would capitalize on their partnership with Lucas. Lucas had just produced Captain EO which was going to open up in September 1986. After a deal was made, both projects were in production. George and his team at ILM started work on the film for the attraction while Disney bought four flight simulators from the military for $500,000 each. Disney gutted out the building that once housed ...