At long last, construction will resume on Universal Orlando’s Epic Universe. The news comes not just as a boon to theme park fans, but a lifeboat for Central Florida. According to the press release, the expansion will create 14,000 new jobs. It’s a promising sign for the future of the themed entertainment industry and hopefully the first announcement of many more post-quarantine projects to come. And not only from the competition.
The Epic Universe build is an all-hands, full-steam effort, but it does beg tantalizing questions about the existing resort. After the dawn of the Wizarding World in 2010, Islands of Adventure needed no further advertisement. For the next several years following, corporate attention turned to the Studios park. In just four years, Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem, Transformers: The Ride 3-D, and the entire London expansion were added to balance demand. Since 2016, management alternated major attractions between the two and will keep the streak going between 2020’s Bourne Stuntacular and 2021’s Velocicoaster.
It’s a practice that originates with “The Millennium Project,” a catch-all codename for the shiny, new toy intended to draw crowds back from the shiny, new Islands of Adventure. There were many possibilities, most of them well-documented – Apollo 13 roller coaster, The Simpsons Ride before The Simpsons Ride, Stephen King, etc. – before the solution presented itself with Men in Black: Alien Attack. The franchise was white-hot upon opening, between first and second films, and remains iconic enough to sell stuffed pugs wearing Brooks Brothers.
The eventual opening of Epic Universe, especially with its geographic separation from the other parks, calls for a project of similar import to maintain the tourist balance. Though possible IPs are a complete guessing game and most attempts at speculation sound like throwing darts in a Blockbuster, it’s easier to narrow down exactly where the next big things might go.
KidZone
The name alone will send chills down the spine of any self-respecting forum dweller.
Universal Studios Florida’s designated corner for kids has been on the chopping block for years now. At least once, the metaphorical butcher knife was even sharpened.
In 2017, two years after the partnership between Nintendo and Universal was first announced, permits were publicly filed to bulldoze everything past E.T. Adventure. The wrecking ball came so close to swinging that queues for two haunted houses at Halloween Horror Nights 27, namely Ash vs Evil Dead and Scarecrow: The Reaping, had to be diverted around what would’ve been a construction zone before the event was through.
HHN came and went. So did the plans.
There have been hints and held-breaths since – a persistent rumor dating back to the earliest Nintendo announcement is a rerouting of the E.T. queue through or around Café La Bamba to avoid whatever does eventually come – but nothing concrete. From the Animal Actors amphitheater to Fievel’s Playland, it’s easily the biggest open plot left for Universal Studios Florida to revitalize. Judging by the aforementioned permits and plans, this fact is not lost on the powers that be. But now that some of the old tenants are moving out anyway, they have a few more options.
A Day in the Park with Barney
The most recent eviction is everybody’s favorite purple dinosaur. When the temporary closure last summer turned permanent, A Day in the Park with Barney ended a 25-year run as the Studios’s only show catered solely to the little ones. It’s a respectable run for a respectable attraction that most guests without kids didn’t even know existed.
Smart bet says it’s the starting gun, the most expensive and complicated piece of KidZone now gone. Demolition is now only a matter of time. Curious George Goes to Town has been closed for hygienic concerns, anyway. Those two parcels would make for a good headstart.
But with Epic Universe still four years away and not even a cold rumor about anything fast-tracked here, that seems too drastic for the time being. Two simultaneous construction projects, one entire park, one entire land, would take a massive amount of capital in an economy that’s still playing catch-up.
A Day at the Park with Barney, though, is the biggest standalone structure in KidZone, not counting Animal Actors. The current footprint is slightly smaller than Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem, but depending on the necessity of some backstage facilities, it could easily expand to outgrow it. The infrastructure is already in place for a live show. The theming isn’t too elaborate for a fast swap.
It may not be “Millennium Project” caliber, but this theater is an easy opportunity to work in more of Universal’s kid-friendly stable into the park. The trolls of Trolls already meet outside E.T. Most of the DreamWorks and Illuminations characters already have costumes at the ready. The right famous faces could bring a little more life to KidZone and keep it busy at least until the bulldozers finally arrive.
On the tear-off maps that occupy desks at discount ticket centers, Barney is still listed as a third of all children’s entertainment in the park. Losing the show is far more devastating than merchandise sales. Whatever does comes next to the Studios needs to stem that tide and cater to guests too little for motion simulators and explosions.
Fear Factor Live
From the land that wouldn’t die to the attraction.
Like KidZone, Fear Factor Live has narrowly evaded death for a long time, arguably since its construction. Not a year after the grand opening, the NBC inspiration of the same name was cancelled. To date, the theme park equivalent has outlasted two reboots and a change of network. It’s currently closed, the outdoor seating repurposed as a mask-off break area, but unless Universal announces otherwise, the show will go on.
Despite being more resilient than the cockroaches its contestants regularly eat, Fear Factor Live is a common source of speculation. Cornered between the Diagon Alley expansion and Men in Black World’s Fair, the theater looks more out of place by the year. It has survived virtually unchanged since 1991, when an adaptation of Universal Studios Hollywood’s long-running Wild Wild Wild West Stunt Show originated the space. The falling house trick, already cribbed from Buster Keaton, still closes out every performance. The infrastructure itself is one of the oldest buildings on property left largely untouched.
It was supposed to close around HHN 27, like its doomed neighbor across the lagoon, but a Bill and Ted farewell tour kept it around long enough to stick. Alleged plans for a Harry Potter expansion to loop it into the London zip code vaporized with the Nintendo permits.
Four years later, it endures. The HHN 30 website has a single mystery slot for live entertainment. That could mean a stage by Mel’s or anywhere else for that matter, but it most likely means the theater isn’t dead yet. But consider its utility even then, the quietest corner of an otherwise packed park. For a Transformers-sized plot of land, that can’t pass muster much longer.
Whether or not it ends up magically connected to the franchise next door, this is prime real estate to bring some attention back to the Studios, fittingly right next to the original Millennium Project. And in a post-pandemic, post-Beetlejuice’s Graveyard Revue world, Universal could use another killer outdoor show.
Maybe more shows period…
Sharp Aquos Theater
There’s an entire generation of Universal guest that assumes Soundstage 18 was never included in the price of admission. Since 2007, Blue Man Group entertained nightly audiences at the end of the strange street between the emporium and Stage B42. It’s out of the way, seen mostly from the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit queue and HHN switchbacks. Until the Blue Men moved out, it was an insider’s delight, the vaunted “secret” entrance to the Studios.
Now, it’s just a vestigial limb leftover from opening day.
Nickelodeon was an uncontested draw for kids across the ‘90s. The short-lived studio tour, synonymous the Universal name, loaded out front and added to the foot traffic. The working studio structure necessitated the awkward layout, but also made it part of the vicarious thrill.
As the Studios grew, turning the space into an extra-ticketed entertainment venue made sense.
As the resort grows, Soundstage 19 becomes more and more of a misshapen puzzle piece.
The easiest replacement is another extra-ticketed show. Finding an act with that kind of staying power and appeal – it played the same for all ages and languages – is a tall order, but not impossible. It rounds out CityWalk’s offerings nicely. Disney will eventually have another Cirque du Soleil show. Universal might want to keep that market in check.
A trickier proposition is working the space back into the park proper. The visual separation does it no favors, even with a big, flashing arrow at the intersection of Minion Way and Plaza of the Stars. However, if there’s any interest in reviving the behind-the-scenes theme of Production Central, there’s no better place to put a new special effects show or something like it. Shrek 4-D, long on suspected life-support, would make more sense as a front-and-center IP tie-in. Soundstage 19 is ready built for a live production anyhow. That is, unless the building itself gets gutted.
The nuclear option has never been rumored so much as occasionally hoped for – a complete overhaul of Universal Studios Florida’s entrance.
All that stands between 19’s small courtyard and the Studio gates are the coaster and the gift shop. Based on the useful life of Dueling Dragons and Hulk 1.0, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit would close in 2027, just two years after the guesstimated opening of Epic Universe. The emporium has survived, virtually unchanged, since 1990. As the park’s focus drifts further from making movies to living them, The Front Lot dates by the day. In a post-Gringotts landscape, only a two-minute walk from Port of Entry, a remodel feels a lot more like a when than an if.
In that case, Soundstage 19 could be the southernmost bound of Universal Studios Florida and the corner anchor of a new-and-improved entrance.
Toon Lagoon Amphitheater
In many and various ways, Islands of Adventure kickstarted the modern age of theme park design. As a reward, it continues to age like fine wine. The bone-deep overhauls staring down its sister park aren’t needed here and won’t be for a long time, if ever. That makes the guessing game easier; expansion at Islands is mostly plug-and-play. It’s easier still to notice the long-existing vacancies.
The Toon Lagoon Amphitheater hides in plain sight. Thousands of visitors stroll by it daily. Hundreds win stuffed Minions just across the sidewalk. But it’s been quiet for so long, many of those visitors might not even notice what they’re passing.
The arena opened with the park in 1999, featuring a musical showcase of everybody’s favorite big-headed comic strip characters. But as audiences dwindled, distracted by the park’s higher-tech line-up, the bookings turned seasonal. A number of extreme sports demonstrations came and went. The last, Mat Hoffman’s Aggro Circus, played the busy season of 2010. In the years since, the amphitheater hosted special events like cheerleading competitions and celebrity panels for A Celebration of Harry Potter, as well as focus-testing for upcoming attractions.
Unlike the other open-air performance spaces on property, the Toon Lagoon amphitheater hasn’t reopened as a mask-free rest area. Some of the lampposts out front still hold banners from the Pandemonium Cartoon Circus, a song-and-dance show last sung and danced 20 years ago.
It’s not so much grist for the rumor mill as reason enough to watch the clock. The odds-on favorite replacement is a clone of Hollywood’s Secret Life of Pets dark ride. But that’s only one possibility.
Toon Lagoon as a whole is getting long in the tooth. The Sunday Funnies have been hunted to near-extinction. Replacing the amphitheater, as wide-open a plot as Islands has these days, could be the first move in a broader makeover of the land, whatever the eventual theme.
A less likely possibility is that Marvel Super Hero Island annexes it instead, rerouting the eventual entrance toward Spider-Man’s rarely used extended queue. The Marvel contracts may be stickier than ever for new additions, but the ever-more-rabid fandom around the movies can’t be lost on the powers that be.
Consider, though, Skull Island: Reign of Kong. Without touching anything around it, the amphitheater could become its own mini-island, no bigger than a single attraction and food stand. Between Harry Potter-Lost Continent and Skull Island-Jurassic Park, the split-difference model may be the way the park grows going forward.
Lost Continent
The more recently abandoned amphitheater at Islands is the more tantalizing opportunity.
Ever since Harry Potter moved in, the days of the remaining Lost Continent have been numbered. It was the only original land on opening day and the only one subdivided within itself, though a case could be made for Toon Lagoon and the Sweethaven cul-de-sac. Because its inspirations were more abstract – cherry-picked myths and legends – the attractions carried few preconceived notions and delivered the strangest experiences in the park.
In 2018, The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad took its final bow. Reviews were mixed on the show from the first performance, but it was still one of the last meat-and-potatoes stunt spectaculars built in Orlando. The sudden closure, announced just a month ahead of time, signaled some kind of plan. But nothing happened. No permits were filed. Then the world paused.
As the world slowly resumes, Lost Continent is looking threadbare. The Sinbad amphitheater is open to sit, take a load off, and stare that oddly elaborate scenery across the way. Poseidon’s Fury, still the gold-medal weirdest thing in Islands of Adventure, was temporarily closed in the same shutdown as Barney. The ultimate fate of the purple dinosaur is not lost on theme park fans or reporters. All that’s left for the time being is Mythos and the talking fountain.
The reason Sinbad isn’t listed as a possible expansion separate from Lost Continent, as Barney is from KidZone, comes down to taste and timing. It’s a massive outdoor theater for a massive outdoor stunt show, bigger than Wild Wild Wild West ever was. That style has gone the way of the Dodo, with souped-up hybrids like The Bourne Stuntacular taking the baton. As it stands, that’s about all that could readily replace the show as-is. Couple that with a stricter sense of thematic integrity than at the Studios and Lost Continent looks a lot more like an all-or-nothing deal.
If there’s a brand-new island on the horizon, then Lost Continent is just about set for the dynamite. Nintendo, DreamWorks, Illumination, some wildcard franchise so far unsuspected. Whatever this park’s “Millennium Project” may be, if it’s anything bigger than a single attraction, expect it here.
