Imagine if, instead of finding Florida, a second park was added to Disneyland and the resulting complex christened Walt Disney World.
World would mean ‘land, but ‘land would only mean a quarter of World, factoring in future resorts and shopping. How do you communicate that to the millions of guests who had been to Disneyland, but never Walt Disney World? Can you run ads for the new park and the new resort separately and simultaneously? What does guest services tell the people from Paducah that flew across the country just to spend double on admission for what they were sold as one big gate?
Such is the unique tragedy of Universal Studios Escape, a cautionary tale of bad branding and worse timing.
Expansion plans for Universal Studios Florida started with a closed-door meeting in 1991, just one year after its famously rocky opening season. Jay Stein, head of the MCA Recreation Services Group and godfather of the first park, proposed a sequel – “Project X.”
Disney had already tried to beat Universal at its own game, some would say illegally. When the competition announced its partnership with MGM Studios, Stein was honest with reporters: “We were just stunned at what those bastards did.” Somewhere between legend and litigation, the story goes that Disney CEO Michael Eisner heard Universal’s pitch for a Florida complex when he still worked at Paramount. His public defense did little to put out that fire: “I never even saw [the plans] and I’ve never been on the Universal tour in California – I heard it was boring.”
If there’s one thing Universal Studios Florida was not, it was boring. If anything, the reckless pursuit of bleeding-edge thrills would be the project’s Achilles heel – Universal built a park full of prototypes with all the operational nightmares that came with them. But ride-for-ride, show-for-show, set-for-set, there was no contest. Disney built a half-day park for film and TV production that never quite showed up. Universal, to paraphrase company president Sidney Sheinberg, built a better mousetrap.
With “Project X,” Universal would take the fight to Disney and hit them right in the Ink & Paint Department. The soon-renamed Cartoon World was designed as an answer and upgrade to Disney’s Magic Kingdom. The Kingdom only has one land of recognizable characters? Cartoon World will have recognizable characters in every land. Disney only uses its own characters in the Kingdom? Universal will use everybody’s characters in Cartoon World.
Park #2 would, if not steal, then at least share more guests with the rivals down I-4. Two parks versus three was an even-enough split to make a difference, but Universal was still on the back foot when it came to lodging – as of early 1991, zero hotels versus eight and counting – and extracurricular activities. There was no competition at closing time – Universal guests went home at the end of the day, but Disney guests never had to leave. If it truly wanted to compete, the new studio in town would need more than another gate.
And so, as Universal’s first bespoke theme park was just starting to find its footing, Universal’s first bespoke resort got the greenlight.
Public relations manager Tom Schroder made the mission plain: “We know [visitors] are going to do other things and that’s fine with us, but we want them to stay here.”
The formal announcement came two years later on September 16th, 1993. A second gate headlined by creative consultant Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster of the century, Jurassic Park. Five hotels. A shopping and nightlife district like Hollywood’s new CityWalk complex. A full convention center. A tennis club. 300 time-share units. 18,000 parking spaces. More soundstages. More recreation. Just more.
“Universal City Florida” would cost $3 billion – quadrupling the cost of the original park with interest – and take a decade to complete. For Lew Wasserman, chairman of then-parent-company MCA, it was worth it: “We’ll be going head-to-head just like we’ve done with Disney in California for 25 years.”
The road from Cartoon World to Islands of Adventure is already well-documented, but the rest of the expansion is a story told mostly in the margins.
When the Marvel Entertainment Group signed the dotted line on March 22nd, 1994, Universal City Florida had already changed shape. Although most of the agreement was dedicated to the new park, legally defined only as THE SECOND GATE, the overall project description shed some light on the whole. The resort would annex the Hard Rock Café as-is, add four resorts instead of five, and make room for a golf course alongside the tennis club.
The contract also estimated 5 million guests would visit THE SECOND GATE in its inaugural season. It was a modest guess at the time – the other park racked up 7.7 million the following year – but Universal had every reason to play it safe.
Walt Disney World lost five million guests in four years, bottoming out in 1994 with a combined 28.9 million. This slide did not go unnoticed among investors still reeling from the failure of Euro Disneyland and the complete non-start of Disney’s America. After the death of Frank Wells, morale behind the scenes was no better. To sate the stock market and head off the competition, Disney let something slip.
In November of 1993, the company announced the addition of nine hotels, a sports complex, and a third waterpark.
In November of 1994, a “person close to the company” told the New York Times that the capstone of Disney’s new $2-billion expansion was a fourth gate, known tentatively as “Animal Kingdom.”
Universal was no longer playing catch-up; they were going to war.
The CityWalk equivalent, earlier pitched as the campus-themed “College Hill,” was officially announced as “The E-Zone” on November 19th, 1995. Negotiations were already underway with possible vendors. Early hopefuls included B.B. King’s Blues Club, the E! Entertainment Television Production Center, a Sega GameWorks, the 31,000-sqft Shaq’s Place, and Marvel Mania, a sister location to the first-last-and-only other at Universal Studios Hollywood.
The news came mere months after Disney announced their own chic expansion of the Village Marketplace, complete with name-brand blues venue.
Trademarks started flying fast and furious. Possible Island names included “Toon Square” and “Isla Nublar,” a late-enough change that some contemporary guidebooks still used it.
In March of 1995, “The Resort at Universal City Florida” was reserved as a generic catchall for whichever hotel stuck first. Early contenders that survived more than one concept rendering included the Silverscreen Resort and the Royal Egyptian, based in no small part on Stephen Sommers’s coming Mummy remake. Within a few years, something funny happened to those renderings.
Early models for Universal City Florida turned the resort into an archipelago. Not streams, but rivers. Not lagoons, but lakes. The water taxis are an obvious descendent, but far removed from the originally intended grandeur.
By 1997, the officially released artwork was final enough to get two of the hotels correct – Portofino Bay and the Hard Rock – with the Royal Egyptian still hanging on for dear life. The E-Zone had already become CityWalk as of that March. The Universal City Florida title earned an official logo. The copy even promised an eventual six total hotels, a number the resort only hit in 2018 with the Aventura. But where would they go and what of the golf courses?
That summer, Universal entered negotiations to buy 1,800 acres of land from Lockheed Martin off Sand Lake Road near the Orange County Convention Center. Plans were presented for the so-called Sand Lake Resort Complex. Two golf courses, 700 time-share units, 13,000 hotel rooms, and an entertainment center to rival CityWalk.
In October 1998, the Universal Studios Recreation Group bought Wet ‘n Wild, securing its own waterpark complement and a prime piece of International Drive real estate. That December, hands shook on the Lockheed Martin deal.
New parent company Seagram was confident enough in Universal’s growth, in “Project X,” to invest two steps ahead, even as it sold off assets to stay afloat. Theme parks were its surest thing after all, inspiring a $55 million investment in Spain’s Port Aventura and a $1.7 billion partnership for Universal Studios Japan.
The first-year attendance estimates were bumped up to 6 million guests, with quieter hopes of around 8 million.
Opening day was fast approaching. Construction crews were chipping away. All that was left to do was spread the word.
A trademark sealed the resort’s fate on March 12th, 1998. There would be no Escape.
Universal bought a $60 million ad blitz, doubling what Disney spent in 1998, and worked out an additional $100 million from corporate partners like Coca-Cola and Dodge. It was the only way to sway a mouse-happy audience on “The Orlando Vacation Destination for the 21st Century.”
It was the only way to sell Universal Studios Escape.
The first commercials played on Universal home video releases, narrated by Don LaFontaine, the legendary voice behind “In a world…”
“Nobody brings the motion pictures to life like Universal Studios Florida,” he croons, over heartfelt montage of the park’s greatest hits and biggest smiles. “But the excitement has just begun.”
Islands of Adventure is still embryonic, shown off without a single frame of the actual park. Toon Lagoon and Lost Continent are absent entirely. “The next generation of theme park” is advertised, at least for a split-second, with footage of the Steel Phantom at Kennywood, one of only two amusement parks designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Before the ordinary viewer could notice, the logo fades in. The studio arches, the lighthouse, and the iconic globe all burnished in gold atop the title: Universal Studios Escape.
At no point in the commercial does it mention Portofino Bay, the first hotel to open, or CityWalk. Beyond the “next generation of theme park,” there’s no clue that it’s a separate experience at all.
But it does recommend viewers call their travel agent or visit the website USF.com.
In hindsight, that address was a bellwether. It was still the park’s original website when the campaign started. As the campaign exploded, so did the site.
Brochures demanded an answer – Are you ready? They also insisted on calling the new park “Universal Studios Islands of Adventure” and nothing less. But they did promise plenty to see: “Give Us Three Days and Nights, We’ll Give You a Whole New Universe.”
Confused? Just head over to UEscape.com for more information.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened on April 22nd, 1998, shortly after Universal’s first salvo, with a massive marketing push of its own that culminated in a two-hour ABC special.
Entertainment analysis Harold Vogel said sooth before either ribbon was cut: “The marketing battle will be so costly that they’ll depress profits at both parks – at least for a while. I suspect they may both be a little disappointed the first year out.”
Projections for Animal Kingdom calculated a 20% leech rate from the attendance of Disney’s other parks. The real number was closer to 40%. It met the 6 million guest mark, as predicted, but with an 8% decline in attendance at the Magic Kingdom and 10% decline at both Epcot and Disney-MGM Studios.
Universal’s numbers held firm – only way out was through now.
In 1999, with only months left, the commercials got bigger.
A teenager throws a frisbee at the dog park and two-ton triceratops bounds after it. Doc Ock fights Spider-Man on the wing of a 747 headed to, you guessed it, Sunny Florida. The Cat in the Hat sneaks green eggs and ham onto the menu of a roadside diner. All wrapped up with the same bow, the Universal Studios Escape logo, now with one noticeable revision – “Orlando,” right beneath “Escape.”
That at least placed the resort, but matching commercials for existing attractions like Terminator 2:3D muddied the water all over again – See the old and the new, both at Universal Studios Escape Orlando!
Even the coverage couldn’t quite parse the difference. A Wired spotlight on The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man described Escape as “an expansion of Universal Studios Florida, its existing tourist trap.” Kelly Monaghan’s annual travel guide led with a one-page explanation titled “Just What Is Universal Studios Escape?”
Soft openings for Islands of Adventure began on March 27, then came judgment day on May 28.
The grand opening was a resounding success celebrated with towering inflatables and trademark explosions.
Seven months later, Universal had to issue a statement to the Orlando Sentinel denying rumors that the Escape brand would be abandoned and assuring it would “just take time to get the message across.”
In its first half-year of existence, Islands of Adventure drew 3.4 million visitors, a fair proportion to a full year’s estimated six. But considering the new park smell and hopes for 8 million, the math was still worrying, especially alongside CityWalk’s anemic nightlife.
Bets were hedged accordingly in 2000.
The promised “Three Days and Nights” of entertainment simmered down to “Two Days – Two Parks.” In January, parking was made free after 6 PM so locals could check out the clubs and restaurants. Despite the press release to the contrary, an alternate title was hastily launched for the resort.
“Universal Orlando” appeared first on letterhead, then phonelines. The commercials were split into specific spotlights on Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure, both of them still pointing to UEscape.com.
Web surfers could still find what they were looking for, but now with a Universal Orlando logo in the corner. Before long, the URL linked directly to UniversalStudios.com, an umbrella site for all the company’s theme parks.
In June, French media conglomerate Vivendi bought the struggling Seagram for $30 billion, Universal included.
On July 8th, the Universal Studios Escape sign came down from the Hollywood Way marquee. The branding lasted a mere 28 months, from March 1998 to July 2000.
The same year, Universal released its first vacation planning video. Within a minute, it breaks down the resort in no uncertain terms – two parks, one entertainment district, two hotels – and calls it Universal Orlando. So it would be, forever and ever.
There’s no easy way to measure how much the Escape campaign cost Universal. Most immediately, it led to a $98 million loss in 2000. But how much of that can be blamed on confusion?
The 1997 financial crisis in Japan led to a domino-drop of global tourism. Europe was beginning to drown in unemployment. Stock markets around the world spelled recession.
The World Travel and Tourism Council predicted stagnation through 1999, with a turnaround in 2000.
In 2001, Universal Orlando lost 1.5 million visitors, most of them before the terrorist attacks that brought international travel to a standstill.
It was a long decade for losing.
The Universal Studios Escape trademark was officially abandoned in 2002. The Lockheed Martin land sold one year later to cover costs. Not long after, General Electric bought 80% of Vivendi’s media holdings at a cost of $14 billion. Universal Studios Florida received a few enduring favorites like Men in Black: Alien Attack and Revenge of the Mummy to draw crowds back from its newer neighbor, but attendance was a tooth-and-nail fight. Islands of Adventure, perhaps owing to its lingering price tag, saw no major changes for ten years. To the designers’ credit, word of mouth for “the world’s most technologically advanced theme park” was enough to keep it competitive.
Today, Universal Orlando is on a familiar verge. The Harry Potter partnership lit a fire under the company and brought enough money to keep it burning. In 2016, Universal started buying back parcels of the Lockheed plot. Official word came three years later – an Epic was on the way.
There was no mistaking this press release: “The new location will feature a theme park, an entertainment center, hotels, shops, restaurants and more.”
With construction resuming on the project, it remains to be seen exactly how Universal will market the Epic Universe campus. It’s part of Universal Orlando, but a bus ride away, with very different perks for its hotel guests. And what of the value resort it recently built on the former Wet n’ Wild plot?
Fortunately, this isn’t Universal’s first rodeo with challenges like these. Pound for pound, not much has changed. There are even a few Universal Studios Escape logos still hiding out on International Drive street signs. The only real difference is scale.
In 1999, Universal President Ron Meyer talked about the Escape plan in pragmatic terms: “We just want them for two days instead of one. We don’t need a big piece of Disney. We just need a shave.”
In 2013, NBCUniversal President Steve Burke set a bigger but no less realistic course for the company’s future as, “a family destination in and of itself – not an add-on attraction for somebody who’s spent three or four days someplace else.”
So much for two parks, two days or even three days and nights. Universal Orlando doesn’t need to bill itself as an Escape anymore. Soon enough, it’ll have its own Universe, and that’s been written on the studio arches since opening day.
