Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind - General Discussion

[Nick]

Anyone of you know what the other most expensive coasters are? I would assume Hagrid's, Gringotts, and Everest.

Tron. It’s not costing much less. Roughly $1B between the two rides, which is absolutely insane.

 

[belloq87]

Anyone of you know what the other most expensive coasters are? I would assume Hagrid's, Gringotts, and Everest.

Everest famously made headlines for costing $100 million (in 2004 - 2006 dollars). Can't speak to Hagrid or Gringotts.

What's really wild is that, even with inflation taken into account, I'm fully expecting Everest will still be a more impressive attraction in terms of detail and scale than what Cosmic Rewind ends up being (unless there are lots of elements insiders have decided to keep to themselves up to this point!).

 

[JungleSkip]

Tron. It’s not costing much less.

Which is even crazier, as it's a clone.

 

[belloq87]

Tron. It’s not costing much less. Roughly $1B between the two rides, which is absolutely insane.

The real insanity is that they're both pretty much just coasters in dark boxes. Which can be fun, sure (I'm very much looking forward to TRON), but they're not Everest or Hagrid's situations where there's going to be detailed, rich, elaborate theming elements.

 

[Scott W.]

Tbh, I don’t think the ride is reliant on getting the actors to film. They could probably use the comic versions of the characters as backup and have Pratt, Saldana, Cooper, etc record voice over.

Surely, it needs to be the MCU. It's one thing to talk about the comic version for MSHI but I don't think it will work here.

Upon saying, we don't know how much the Guardians are going to be in the ride and if I remember right, Mission Breakout was recorded in a single day.

Given how the cast responded to Gunn's firing, if he asked them to come in for a day of shooting, I'm sure they would be more than happy to. Plus he's a big theme park guy.

But this is all a mute point if it's delayed until 2022.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

Hagrid is quoted as close to 300...but honestly I don't buy that, as it'd be way out of character for Uni's budgets. Everest was 100 million, but that was also built a decade and a half ago.

I could see a 150 million but not any higher. I think that 300 million number got tossed around erroneously without any citation, then got picked up by mainstream outlets who, as history has shown, know very little about theme parks.

Tron. It’s not costing much less.

So Everest is $100 mil in 2006, yet somehow Tron and Guardians each cost about as much as Pandora (if $500 mil estimate is true), and together as much as a Galaxy's Edge.

Something doesn't add up here. There's inflation, and then there's Weinmar German chicanery inflation.

 

[Scott W.]

I could see a 150 million but not any higher. I think that 300 million number got tossed around erroneously without any citation, then got picked up by mainstream outlets who, as history has shown, know very little about theme parks.

So Everest is $100 mil in 2006, yet somehow Tron and Guardians each cost about as much as Pandora (if $500 mil estimate is true), and together as much as a Galaxy's Edge.

Something doesn't add up here. There's inflation, and then there's Weinmar German chicanery inflation.

It's Disney. This is how I imagine the meetings go when costing a project:

 

[redy2468]

Hagrid is quoted as close to 300...but honestly I don't buy that, as it'd be way out of character for Uni's budgets. Everest was 100 million, but that was also built a decade and a half ago.

May I ask what a typical Universal budget is assumed to be?

Also does anyone know how big the Guardians building is supposed to be? How it compares to other large indoor coasters?

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

May I ask what a typical Universal budget is assumed to be?

Reasonable

 

[JungleSkip]

May I ask what a typical Universal budget is assumed to be?

Also does anyone know how big the Guardians building is supposed to be? How it compares to other large indoor coasters?

Forbidden Journey clocked in at under 100 million. Everything in the Diagon Alley project was like 250 ish, I think?

 

[Scott W.]

How much did F&F cost again?

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

Forbidden Journey clocked in at under 100 million. Everything in the Diagon Alley project was like 250 ish, I think?

Both are great examples of doing a lot with a little space. Diagon Alley fits compactly within those five acres yet still has nooks and crannies to explore. Forbidden Journey can put lots of detail into the areas you're going to see since your view is constricted by your position and the walls of the ride vehicle. Sort of like a modern Haunted Mansion omnimover.

How much did F&F cost again?

Maybe someone should make a list of the estimated costs of attractions from this decade.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

Probably just referring to the fact that it’s the most expensive roller coaster in the history of mankind by a wide margin.

The could be true lol, but lets see if its actually worth something ya know!

 

[HandsomePete]

They must be working with NASA to make hyper accurate space nebulas.

Literally laughed out loud at this - wrong project and NASA wouldn’t return their calls but A+ for the WDI thought process.

 

[BigHouseFootball]

How does any one ride cost HALF A BILLION?! An entire land? Sure. But one ride?

For fun I looked up what Fury 325 cost to build-the B&M Gigacoaster at CaroWinds. It’s 325 feet high and 6,602 feet long. It cost 30 Million in 2015.

I get Disney and Universal put a tremendous amount of detail and theming into each ride and that’s what set these parks apart from a Cedar Fair park, but GoG costing 470 Million more than one of the talent and longest steel coasters in the world is insanity.

How is that possible? No wonder Disney stretches the cost over 5 years. How can you pitch a ride like this and say 500 Million with a straight face? I would looooove to ever get my eyes on a budget sheet for a ride like this.

 

[Happytycho]

How does any one ride cost HALF A BILLION?! An entire land? Sure. But one ride?

For fun I looked up what Fury 325 cost to build-the B&M Gigacoaster at CaroWinds. It’s 325 feet high and 6,602 feet long. It cost 30 Million in 2015.

I get Disney and Universal put a tremendous amount of detail and theming into each ride and that’s what set these parks apart from a Cedar Fair park, but GoG costing 470 Million more than one of the talent and longest steel coasters in the world is insanity.

How is that possible? No wonder Disney stretches the cost over 5 years. How can you pitch a ride like this and say 500 Million with a straight face? I would looooove to ever get my eyes on a budget sheet for a ride like this.

Whereas the price of a coaster like Fury 325 is driven primarily by size because the cost is primarily in track and supports, for Disney and Universal style rides the price is primarily driven by the special features and accessories put around the track. And that stuff is expensive.

Fury 325 has 6,600 feet of track, a standard lift hill, 3 trains, and a very lightly themed station. I can't speak to GOTG because I haven't followed the project much, but if we compare to Hagrid's, Hagrid has:
- 5,000 feet of track
- 12 trains
- 7 launches
- 3 mid-course track switches
- 2 drop tracks and the building that contains them
- long moving loading and unloading belts
- multiple large animatronics
- lots of rock/stonework

Throw in demo and the queue retheming, and it's easy to see how you get nine-figure construction costs. I mean, half a billion for GOTG is still pretty ridiculous, but it's also not really fair to be comparing with "standard" coasters like Fury 325.

 

[Magic-Man]

Closer to $500M than not according to @Marni1971

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

WDI wrote up a 400 mil contract for Chris Pratt as a joke, were surprised when he excitedly agreed to play his role in the attraction into perpetuity, and don't have the heart to tell the poor guy they don't need him.

 

[Nick]

How can you pitch a ride like this and say 500 Million with a straight face? I would looooove to ever get my eyes on a budget sheet for a ride like this.

This ride was not supposed to cost what it is costing. They thought by reusing the UoE building for the queue/station that they'd save money when it turns out it would've been cheaper to demolish the building and rebuild. The interior needed extensive amount of work seeing as the building is over 38 years old, which overran the initial budgets considerably.

 

[Scott W.]

This ride was not supposed to cost what it is costing. They thought by reusing the UoE building for the queue/station that they'd save money when it turns out it would've been cheaper to demolish the building and rebuild. The interior needed extensive amount of work seeing as the building is over 38 years old, which overran the initial budgets considerably.

How could they get it so wrong? I’m assuming that the UoE building must have been surveyed at some point before construction started.