“What if…?” Maybe the two most common words to begin any Imagineering project, the question of “what if…?” is enough to leave theme park fans daydreaming, Blue-Sky-ing, and doodling ideas for days.
But once in a while, momentous happenings offer the chance to change things forever. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, these moments are called “Nexus Events” – pivot points in time whose happenings are so massive, they fracture the timeline in two… From a “Nexus Event,” alternate universes diverge… one where things went one way, and another where they didn’t. Obviously, the history of theme parks is filled with Nexus Events (just think: what if Walt Disney died before he dreamed of a “Florida Project”? What if he didn’t die in the ’60s at all?)…
But today, we selected six timeline-fracturing “Nexus Events” that could’ve changed theme parks forever. If you could glimpse into the multiverse to see one of these pivot points play out, which do you think would’ve had the biggest impact on the parks today?
1. What if Disneyland Paris succeeded?
Disneyland Paris was supposed to be the legacy-leaving landmark of Disney’s most ambitious CEO, Michael Eisner. Built with incredible detail, luxury, and craftsmanship, no expense was spared in Disney’s first European theme park. Unfortunately, none of that mattered to the French public, who – after a years-long media assault against the park’s construction – didn’t turn out to fill the six luxury hotels constructed for it. Disneyland Paris’s financial collapse is perhaps the first “Nexus Event” in Disney Parks’ modern history, branching our timeline off from another…
Imagine if Disneyland Paris had succeeded. The begin with, our list of the cancellations, closures, and cop-outs created by the park’s failure would be much shorter… or maybe non-existent. That means we might have gotten Tomorrowland 2055 at Disneyland; Beastly Kingdom may have made the cut for Animal Kingdom; there could be a DisneySea in Long Beach, California… and many more. It’s hard to imagine just how different our Disney Parks would be today in an alternate timeline where Disneyland Paris succeeded… But one of the biggest changes might’ve been…
2. What if WESTCOT didn’t die?
Once planned as the “second gate” to be built next to the original Disneyland, WestCOT was exactly what it sounds like – a West Coast edition of EPCOT, reimagined for a new decade. WestCOT was meant to transform Disneyland in an international resort destination, bringing new hotels, shopping, dining, and more to the landlocked Anaheim resort. This ultra-ambitious park (whose price tag reportedly reached $4 billion) was officially announced in 1991… but the downfall of Disneyland Paris sent executives back to the drawing board, where they developed the much more cost-effective Declassified Disaster: Disney’s California Adventure.
But if WESTCOT had happened, it’s impossible not to daydream about what could be. Would a $4 billion second gate reigned over by a golden Spacestation Earth have been a landmark that forever changed Disneyland? Or would it – like its Floridian sister – have undergone sweeping eras of change, ultimately becoming home to Frozen, Ratatouille, The Avengers, and Finding Nemo anyway? Is the California Adventure of 2023 a better park than WestCOT 2023 would’ve been? It’s impossible to know… but fun to think about…!
3. What if FastPass never debuted?
FastPass was invented in 1999, when the pioneering “virtual queue” system was installed at Animal Kingdom’s Kilimanjaro Safaris. Before long, the idea of pre-booking capacity for rides and leaving a “Stand-by” queue for those not in a virtual line spread to several E-Tickets at each park, then nearly every ride at each park. “Line-skipping” systems spawned across the industry – nearly all for guests who paid more. But only Disney maintained an equal-access, no-cost system. Obviously that’s changed. The eras of FastPass, FastPass+, and now Genie+ with Lightning Lane have seen major edits to waiting at Disney Parks.
But you have to wonder: what if FastPass had never existed at all? Think about it… Would other operators have even discovered line-skipping as a revenue generating program that guests would accept without complaint? How long would it have taken Disney to give in to the idea of people paying to gain priority access? Or do you think somewhere in the multiverse, everyone in Disney Parks just waits in one, single, fast-moving line with no “line-skippers” at all? It’s wild to think about…
4. What if Islands of Adventure had been a hit?
Universal was thinking big when it came to their second theme park in Orlando. Islands of Adventure was meant to reintroduce what Universal was capable of in the public’s eye, finally leaving behind “backlots” and reaching for the kind of immersive, thematic, colorful fantasy worlds made popular by Disney. In many ways, it worked. When the park opened in 1999, it was a wonderful showcase of themed design and new ride technologies, “inventing” the “IP land” altogether and living up to its tagline – “The World’s Most Technologically Advanced Theme Park.”
Unfortunately, the infamous “Universal Studios Escape” marketing moniker meant to explain that Universal now had two distinct theme parks in Orlando famously flopped. Attendance at Islands of Adventure was incredibly below expectations. It took Universal years to figure out how to explain to guests what Islands of Adventure was, and it wasn’t really until the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Hogsmeade opened in 2010 that the park entered the global conversation like it was meant to.
It’s wild to imagine how different theme parks would be today if Islands of Adventure had not underperformed. For example, we know that Disney had a laundry list of projects they were ready to greenlight for Walt Disney World in the wake of Islands of Adventure. If the park had been successful, for example, we might see Fire Mountain rising over Adventureland, or a Disney Villains land beyond Fantasyland. Ultimately, the park’s underperformance meant that Disney could just let those projects go. But if Islands of Adventure had been the hit that both Disney and Universal expected, who knows how different the parks would look today…
5. What if Universal never got Harry Potter?
As the story goes, Disney had been in early talks with the creator of Harry Potter about potentially licensing the book series (and the Warner Bros. produced film series) for use in its parks. Ultimately, those discussions fell through. Disney might’ve expected that no one would be willing to bend to author J.K. Rowling’s famously-fickle demands for the treatment of her characters, but Universal was willing to go in for the rebound.
Ultimately, the 2007 announcement that Universal had acquired the rights to Potter for its parks was a jaw-dropper… but the way they used it was even more stunning, positioning 2010’s Hogsmeade as the first “Living Land” plucked from the screen. No Coca-Cola. No Harry Potter LEGO sets. No meet-and-greets with Harry; just a wholly-immersive, to-scale recreation of the world seen on screen. A place where guests could dine, shop, and live the way the characters had, becoming part of the Wizarding World.
It’s hard to imagine alternate realities to this Nexus Event, but truly imagine where we might be if Disney had licensed Potter for its own parks… or if Warner Bros. had decided to go it alone, opening their own theme parks in Orlando. Where would Universal be? Disney? Given that Islands of Adventure’s Hogsmeade and Universal Studios’ Diagon Alley are considered two of the greatest theme park lands on Earth, it’s difficult to imagine any other interpretation of how Harry Potter might’ve come to theme parks… But just try…
6. What if COVID hadn’t affected the parks?
Theme parks can weather disaster. This millennium alone, Disney and Universal have successfully survived an industry-gutting tourism downturn after the 9/11 terror attacks and a subsequent wave of financial woes during the 2008 recession. But no one could’ve ever predicted COVID-19, a global pandemic that slowed every single industry in every country on Earth to never before seen lows. We’ll probably never know the extent of the closures and cancellations that came from this era, but we do know that the lingering effects of COVID obliterated expectations for ride construction timelines and saw Disney lose immense sums of money from the Parks division that is only now recovering fully.
Obviously, wondering “what if COVID never happened” in the context of theme parks feels selfish and silly given that so many billions of lives were impacted by financial upheaval, career chaos, long-term health consequences, and death. But it’s worth imagining where, for example, Disney’s theme parks might be today if Bob Iger had never stepped down to see Chapek rise; if TRON had been open for the start of Walt Disney World’s 50th; if Avengers Campus would have its E-Ticket by now; if Genie+ never had the chance to replace FastPass; if a global setback in supply chain production hadn’t changed everything at Disney Parks…
“What if…?” It’s one of the toughest questions any theme park fan can ask themselves… But which of these timeline-fracturing “Nexus Events” would you be interested to see the alternate, branching universe for?
