Magic Leap is HOT HOT HOT.
On this site I have extolled the virtues of this tech over and above many others because I feel that Rony Abovitz and his team are onto something great. It is less about a general purpose use of Augmented Reality. It’s about a Mixed Cinematic Reality.
From what I have seen and what I believe to be the next steps in mixed reality, I am making a bold prediction will be that Disney will buy Magic Leap by the end of 2017 for upwards of $25 billion. Many say that Google will but I feel that Google has no ability to know how to monetize the technology beyond having and investment stake in it.
Here’s some evidence that has lead me to this conclusion.

1. Rony Abovitz is more dreamer than CEO

Back in 2012, Rony Abovitz Magic Leap’s CEO spoke/performed at TEDxSarasota. It’s hardly a talk. It’s a performance. Much like Disney believes the world is a stage so does Rony and his team.

It’s a little strong to say that Abovitz is a modern Walt Disney today. Maybe we’ll be saying that in 5 years time? Very likely once the technology evolves a little more. Let’s see an interview from last week to hear a little more about the creation of Magic Leap.

2. Magic Leap’s patents lead us to believe that the world can be a Disneyland

Take a look at Magic Leap’s 180-page patent application magnum opus. When this was released there were many people that explored what the different illustrations meant but one of the first few images in the patent aligns itself with how to drop objects realistically in the world.

Ultimately, anything that can be dreamed can be dropped into the real world. This is exactly what Disney created with real-world environments like Disneyland.

Feels like an augmented reality to me.

Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.

Walt Disney

3. A storyteller is their Lead Futurist

In 2014 Magic Leap hired Neal Stephenson, a world-renowned author and imagineer of the metaverse. In the following video he talks about how long-form novels, no matter how good, cannot be made into movies.

It’s likely that a Magic Leap x Disney coalition will go beyond movies to long-form storytelling that (potentially) lasts years. A partnership will not be enough. Just like when in 1997 Pixar agreed to produce 5 movies together and then eventually lead to an acquisition in 2006 for 7.5 billion (a steal at today’s prices).
The world is more immediate with direct control and this is why Disney must be looking at this tech as an acquisition target today.

4. Mixed reality intersecting with film design will be about creating lasting memories

Over the past few years the entertainment world has been blurring with immersive gaming and film franchises but the two have never been interchangeable or desirable for mass audiences.
Well, Magic Leap needed gaming experience in its ranks and then Rony Abovitz approached Graeme Devine (see his wikipedia entry). In this VentureBeat interview Graeme talks about his first experience with the Magic Leap technology:

I went down to Florida and took a look. I stuck my head into this machine that was about the size of a refrigerator. Right away I’m thinking of that movie Brainstorm. Once I joined I had to buy everyone in the company that blu-ray, because apparently nobody’d seen it. There was a monster running around the desk in front of me. It was this blue monster, and I could control it with an Xbox controller. It was looking just like it was real, on the desk. I’m thinking, “That is weird!”
Then, in the back of the room, a much larger monster stood up and waved at me. I hadn’t realized it was there to begin with. I didn’t notice that monster. It was so naturally fit into the environment. When I went and focused on it, the monster on the table changed and went fuzzy. “Golly.” Well, I thought more than “Golly.” Mostly “Golly.” But this was insane. I’d never seen anything like it. I went from not moving to Florida to being in Florida and learning about making content for this, what it meant to make content in mixed reality.

In the following video we see an interview with  Graeme Devine and Gordon Bellamy at VRX USA conference, November 2015, that talks about how thinking has evolved from playing games to experimentation with full real-world interaction and fantasy through the use of photons to create memories:

5. Star Wars and the evolution of transmedia

The future of immersive movie experiences will be here soon. Here’s a killer experience from Magic Leap working with Industrial Light & Magic. Film will not be film alone. Within 5 years it will be multi-sensory experiences and franchise titles that take the lead. Disney is the master of this kind of domain and with the purchase of Star Wars and these kinds of experiences we will see a new reality. Here’s Vicki Dobbs Beck, the Executive in Charge at ILMxLAB, discussing the vision for storytelling and virtual reality.

Also, now with its new San Francisco offices we see Magic Leap as being neighbours to ILM.