The world wide smash hit franchise “High School Musical” is already present at the Walt Disney Studios for the past three years with the various shows performed during the summer half-year. However, now a year round option for fans is prepared: as reported earlier the former Backlot Express Restaurant has been emptied of all movie props on display so far and is transferred into a restaurant featuring a “High School Musical” themed area and a “Pirates of the Caribbean” themed area – and the transformation is progressing with large steps.

While the operation of the restaurant continues the interior design is further changed nearly every night allowing guests to monitor the progress – however so far only for the HSM themed area. As seen in the photos taken on July 8 and 9 (last week) huge banners referring to the “Wildcats” (the basketball team from the movies) and the “East High” (the fictional high school the movies take place at) are now adoring the entrance area as well as the counter and cashier area. Above the counters a “mural” was installed featuring various motives relating to the basketball team as well as to the theater class which both play vital roles in the movies’ stories. The whole area dedicated to the HSM theme is now sporting a bright white and red color scheme.

In the photos accompanying this post on the right notice the huge wall to the right of the counter area – while it was a bare wall on July 8 a huge version of a promotional photo motive for the movie “High School Musical 3″ was installed over night till July 9 as seen in the photo on the left. Further promotional photo shots also adore the walls in the room that was created by enclosing the former terrace area in the early years of the Walt Disney Studios. However, this room is the only area currently still closed off to guests. The whole HSM themed area is not trying to recreate any specific rooms featured in the movie franchise (such as the high school cafeteria) but takes elements from the visual language of the movies and tries to overlay over the original restaurant rooms with them to recreate more the mood or vibe from the popular movies.

In the meantime there is no progress to report from the future “Pirates of the Caribbean” area, the rooms facing toward the main road of the Studios, toward the Armageddon Special Effects attraction. The area was stripped off any props early in the process as well and was repainted in black to set itself better apart from the HSM area of the restaurant. However, since then visible work concentrated on the HSM area.

It should also be noted that the signage on the facades of the restaurants were partially taken down last week. Where originally a three dimensional “express” was placed next to the “Backlot” signs painted on the facade now only the painted parts of the logos remained by mid-week  as seen on the photo of the left. By early this week the word “Backlot” had been painted over with the word “BLOCKBUSTER”. This seems to be the first step in establishing a new name for the restaurant going along with the re-themeing. It can be expected that a second word will be added to “Blockbuster” since the preparation originally used for the 3D-lettering “express” remained on the facade. However, the new menues put up in the last weeks (which did not include any relevant changes of the offerings) as well as the park guides (valid till November 7) list the location still as “Backlot Express Restaurant” making one wonder when the decision was made to rename the restaurant.

This entry was posted by Dirk on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 7:55 am and is filed under Restaurants, Walt Disney Studios. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.