Universal's Epic Universe Wish List & Speculation

[OhHaiInternet95]

Delaying parts of the park will slow down the return on investment. It also interferes with the ease of construction, noise, etc for park guests and hotel guests.
If the total would be $6B it's not that expensive. Remember Disney build two $1B lands with just 2 rides each in them.
I also think Universal Monsters will be the least expensive. They build Hogmead and the Hogwarts ride for, if I remember correctly $250 million. So if they would spent double that they could easily create the ride and village.
And Super Nintendo World is already developed and build so reproducing that is less expensive (except for the Donkey Kong ride and area).

Based off the concept art being in that YUUUGE building, Wizarding World will be the real budget buster here. So, par for the course lol.

 

[Alicia]

Based off the concept art being in that YUUUGE building, Wizarding World will be the real budget buster here. So, par for the course lol.

While originally planned to have the entire land inside, the plans changed early on to have the initial street outside and then a massive structure for all the attractions. It was altered once again to separate the mega structure into two buildings to help save money, with two side streets outside leading from the main street to them.

 

[Disneyhead]

I think the "changes" are more of a lateral move, not a negative move. Like swapping out a few of the IPs with different IPs. But don't quote me on that. My friend only said that they were making some major changes to the park and the delay would negatively effect his employment status. At that point I didn't want to say anything because of how vague that was. Then just the other day in the Tron thread over on WDWMAGIC Martin said something about expecting a "significant redesign" to the park. I don't know what any of that means, but I feel the winds of change are blowing again.

 

[GAcoaster]

And all that makes sense. Universal makes changes on the fly, and quite often for the better. They may have re-prioritized some of their IPs based on performance as well as looking for cost savings.

Whatever changes are made, I wouldn't expect too much change in scale to the park. Investing this much money to open a half empty park wouldn't make sense since they couldn't recoup the investment and would end up spending more to get it beefed up soon after opening anyway. They have case studies with the Disney parks which clearly show opening a half-assed park ends up costing more in the long run. Especially when this park will be disconnected from the other two, it needs to really go big to make it worth a guest spending time and money on it.

 

[AlexanderMBush]

I think the "changes" are more of a lateral move, not a negative move. Like swapping out a few of the IPs with different IPs. But don't quote me on that. My friend only said that they were making some major changes to the park and the delay would negatively effect his employment status. At that point I didn't want to say anything because of how vague that was. Then just the other day in the Tron thread over on WDWMAGIC Martin said something about expecting a "significant redesign" to the park. I don't know what any of that means, but I feel the winds of change are blowing again.

I mean--how many design changes did Beijing go over again? Remember the original concept art of *that* park?

At this point--the only real constant that I think is going to be the case, is Nintendo.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

I mean--how many design changes did Beijing go over again? Remember the original concept art of *that* park?

At this point--the only real constant that I think is going to be the case, is Nintendo.

I mean this makes sense, even if I and many others just assume oh move SNW to Kidzone, but, Nintendo was sorta the reason for this entire expansion as it’s one of the few IPs that can hold an entire new theme park afloat, of course Potter doesn’t hurt either.

It makes sense that if this project is to move forward in the 2020s that Nintendo is and always will be a staple of the project. The Potter stuff could fit into USF, one of the other projects goes to Hollywood and the other TL or something, just spitballing.

Nintendo was getting a hotel here as well, along with the debut in the US of the Yoshi and DK attractions, it makes sense if this is the case.

 

[JungleSkip]

Honestly, I've always thought it's weird that there wasn't a Minion Land in the park. It's their biggest animated property, and could make a great area. Make a Gru's lab dark ride, maybe bring in Super Silly Funland from Beijing, and a play area. I'd rather have Dragons, but from a business standpoint it was always weird to me that there wasn't a big Minions area

Nintendo was getting a hotel here as well

Pretty sure that's far from confirmed.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Making assumptions and then complaining when they don’t happen is what has gotten us into a ton of messes before. Just everyone please keep that in mind.

 

[AlexanderMBush]

Honestly, I've always thought it's weird that there wasn't a Minion Land in the park. It's their biggest animated property, and could make a great area. Make a Gru's lab dark ride, maybe bring in Super Silly Funland from Beijing, and a play area. I'd rather have Dragons, but from a business standpoint it was always weird to me that there wasn't a big Minions area

I remember when the idea floated around on VillainCon for Shrek. Honestly--I would agree that Despicable Me and more importantly Minions, is one of their strongest IP's imaginable right now, and how it hasn't gotten a proper dark ride is baffling to me.

Nintendo was getting a hotel here as well, along with the debut in the US of the Yoshi and DK attractions, it makes sense if this is the case.

You say that like it's a guarantee.

__
Honestly I'm wondering if EU gets a redesign, how Universal and WarnerMedia are communicating right now about it. Potter in that case--is the big question mark. Especially right now with the stigma the franchise has thanks in part to Rowling.

 

[JungleSkip]

Re: Nintendo Hotel, that rumor never really flew with me. I think it'd be cool, but it is very much *outside* Uni and Loews normal operating procedure. I could see some Nintendo themed rooms in a hotel, like the JP rooms at RP or the DM rooms at Portofino, but not a whole hotel themed to Nintendo

 

[Alicia]

No Nintendo hotel. Sorry. At best, maybe we could see some Nintendo themed suites, like the Minions and Jurassic ones at Royal Pacific, for one of the hotels outside the park—but even that is still far from confirmed.

 

[JungleSkip]

No Nintendo hotel. Sorry. At best, maybe we could see some Nintendo themed suites, like the Minions and Jurassic ones at Royal Pacific, for one of the hotels outside the park—but even that is still far from confirmed.

Makes sense. I'm very curious as to what the other hotels for the area will be. Uni and Loews have shown they make the right decisions on theming (Adventura notwithstanding).

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

I think I’m just gonna refrain from commenting on these threads as I clearly confuse rumors/inside info/speculation from these forums in my posts, and I certainly don’t intentionally try and state things as facts as I may have so with all the changes that will or won’t come I don’t want to be confusing peeps lol

 

[tielo]

I never understood that How you train your dragon got a whole land. Don't get me wrong the 3 films are the best trilogy ever (even I was a huge fan of the original Star Wars trilogy). A "world" at Epic Universe can contain different lands as shown in Super Nintendo World who houses different ip's in one world.
The same goes for the Universal Monsters that pull inspiration from a lot of movies.
So Potter and Dragon are (for me) the outlaws. Sure an ip like Lord of the Rings could contain a whole word but I rather have an Animated Universe world with Despicable + Minions, How to train your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda (to name a few) as a collection>
As said, a Potter expansion could fit in Studios as in Islands so that would make way for Classic Universal world where they could bring back Back to the Future, Jaws and a brand new ET ride.

 

[JungleSkip]

I never understood that How you train your dragon got a whole land. Don't get me wrong the 3 films are the best trilogy ever (even I was a huge fan of the original Star Wars trilogy). A "world" at Epic Universe can contain different lands as shown in Super Nintendo World who houses different ip's in one world.
The same goes for the Universal Monsters that pull inspiration from a lot of movies.
So Potter and Dragon are (for me) the outlaws. Sure an ip like Lord of the Rings could contain a whole word but I rather have an Animated Universe world with Despicable + Minions, How to train your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda (to name a few) as a collection>
As said, a Potter expansion could fit in Studios as in Islands so that would make way for Classic Universal world where they could bring back Back to the Future, Jaws and a brand new ET ride.

I think they wanted to go with the more detailed, expansive representations than the Fantasyland route of smushing everything together. But I mostly agree. I love HTTYD, but I think a land made up of more properties makes sense in the long run. HTTYD, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, Shrek, etc. Motiongate in Dubai has shown you can do smaller scale lands for each property but still make them highly themed and representative.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

I wouldn't be surprised if the park itself was 3-4 billion and the infrastructure/stuff around it another 1.5-2 billion

Delaying parts of the park will slow down the return on investment. It also interferes with the ease of construction, noise, etc for park guests and hotel guests.
If the total would be $6B it's not that expensive. Remember Disney build two $1B lands with just 2 rides each in them.
I also think Universal Monsters will be the least expensive. They build Hogmead and the Hogwarts ride for, if I remember correctly $250 million. So if they would spent double that they could easily create the ride and village.
And Super Nintendo World is already developed and build so reproducing that is less expensive (except for the Donkey Kong ride and area).

$6 Billion for a new theme park is very expensive.

Epic Universe (and the entire development around it) is not costing more than $2-3 Billion. If IOA were built today (as it was in 1999), it would roughly cost around ~$1.5 Billion. Star Wars land itself did not cost $1 Billion, lots of that was spent on renovations to the park and demolition.

 

[joelbryant11]

Berk is going to look awesome. They have a lot of color and water features to work with. If you compare it to something like Toy Story Land (the coaster looks similar in scope to SDD) then I think this land will blow that one away. I like the idea of UC getting to completely flush out and IP instead of do this combination thing.

While I’m personally looking more forward to classic monsters, I think HTTYD is as close to a surefire hit they can install.

 

[Happytycho]

I never understood that How you train your dragon got a whole land. Don't get me wrong the 3 films are the best trilogy ever (even I was a huge fan of the original Star Wars trilogy). A "world" at Epic Universe can contain different lands as shown in Super Nintendo World who houses different ip's in one world.
The same goes for the Universal Monsters that pull inspiration from a lot of movies.
So Potter and Dragon are (for me) the outlaws. Sure an ip like Lord of the Rings could contain a whole word but I rather have an Animated Universe world with Despicable + Minions, How to train your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda (to name a few) as a collection>
As said, a Potter expansion could fit in Studios as in Islands so that would make way for Classic Universal world where they could bring back Back to the Future, Jaws and a brand new ET ride.

I was really looking forward to the Epic HTTYD land. I honestly believe it was going to turn out to be really well, even with its large size and the lower expectations for it. Looking at the concept art and permit layouts, it looks really well designed and the ride collection seems good too.

I would also agree that Universal should be doing far more to incorporate Dreamworks and Illumination properties into the Orlando parks, but I think USF (or Toon Lagoon?) would be a much better fit for a mash-up of mini-lands than Epic Universe

 

[JungleSkip]

Berk is going to look awesome. They have a lot of color and water features to work with. If you compare it to something like Toy Story Land (the coaster looks similar in scope to SDD) then I think this land will blow that one away. I like the idea of UC getting to completely flush out and IP instead of do this combination thing.

While I’m personally looking more forward to classic monsters, I think HTTYD is as close to a surefire hit they can install.

I think the issue is theme park lands, especially ones based off a single IP, more likely than not have a limited shelf life. HTTYD 3 came out in 2019. By the time the park opens itll be 5-6 years old. You're kind of pushing it making a land on a single property like that, at least one that isn't Potter or Star Wars level popular.

Now, I love the property and the land looks pretty good. But I'm not sure how viable it is as a long term land the more I consider it.

 

[OhHaiInternet95]

I think the issue is theme park lands, especially ones based off a single IP, more likely than not have a limited shelf life. HTTYD 3 came out in 2019. By the time the park opens itll be 5-6 years old. You're kind of pushing it making a land on a single property like that, at least one that isn't Potter or Star Wars level popular.

Now, I love the property and the land looks pretty good. But I'm not sure how viable it is as a long term land the more I consider it.

In fairness, how many properties are SW or HP level? Nintendo will be, but aside from that? JP and Monsters are the closest I can think of, but even those probably aren’t “single-handedly get people to plan a vacation“ properties like those first three are.

(The HHN equivalents would obviously be TWD and ST.)