Harry Potter Theme Park Planned

You gotta admit, this is kinda cool. I love Universal Studios in Florida, got all sorts of neat shit like this so I'm actually kind of excited to see what they are going to do with it. If you haven't been on the Spider-man ride they had there, you are missing out on something.

A.

I'd much rather see a Lord of the Rings theme park, but that's just me.

Of course, I doubt Tolkien's son and family would ever ok that move.

Ah, well, good news if you're a Potter fan.

f'n awesome, yet i wish this was being built in europe as seems most natural.

and i agree darkraven, a LOTR themed park would be the shit, but i guess there's not much bank in a lot of open wilderness

The theme park will suck. From what I have read it will only be 20 acres, thats way too small. You need the castle, and make it great, and several other things. 20 acres won't be enough to make the castle the way it should be done.

bdd,
That's just not realistic. They will just have sections of things. They could never build the whole castle. I bet they'll have the shops and such, though.

We will be able to walk down Dragon Alley and visit the broom shop and wand shop. We'll have to dodge the whomping willow.

I think it could be cool, as long as they don't try to make it for too young of a crowd it might work. And 20 acres isn't that small. i bet it will be tight but as "almost" noted they can't build an entire castle and do all this to scalle or even close, by any means. I think it's a wait and see situation. At least they have the guy from the movie working on it.

sounds like a very good idea, my only thing is how will this park fair 10 years down the road? This is like the first major theme park built around one movie/book. A LOTR theme park??? that's stupid, how could you even market something like that? besides the fact that harry potter theme park is way more family oriented than a LOTR theme park...wait...why am I talking about an imaginary LOTR theme park?

Umm.... folks, first of all, it isn't a "theme park". It's an island, (themed land) at Islands of Adventure in Orlando. Each island averages around 25 acres or so, and there are 6 of them. In clockwise order from entry... Port of Entry, Marvel Superhero Island, Toon Lagoon, Jurassic Park, Lost Continent, and Seuss Landing. (They're not "islands" either... they're not completely surrounded by water. They're just themed zones of the park.) HP is going to be an overlay over the Lost Continent area, and will extend into the backstage areas of the park as well. Lost Continent will shrink in size to a handful of acres, while most of the attractions in LC will be either rethemed or reworked to match HP. Mythos, (the #1 theme park restaurant in the world,) will remain as it currently is in LC.

This isn't going to be a park with it's own gate and entrance fee... it's going to be part of another park. Personally, I think they should have made this it's own park, making a third park on their resort.

If you want a size comparison, Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World is 120 acres. 20 acres isn't enough room for a full sized park, but it is big enough for a themed area in a park.

Bear in mind that Islands of Adventure was voted the Best Theme Park in the world in this year's Golden Ticket Awards, (the equivalent of the Oscars for the theme park industry, voted on by industry professionals,) so Universal knows what it's doing when making rides and attractions based around licensed properties, such as Jurassic Park, the Simpsons, Back to the Future, Jaws, E.T., etc.

Opening for the new island is expected to be sometime in late 2009 or early 2010.

While I'm at it... why doesn't Mania have a section devoted to theme parks? It covers almost every other form of entertainment out there.

Squid

Thanks for the interesting info, Squid. That makes a lot more sense than an entirely self-existing new theme park. I agree, section or not, 20 acres is still pretty small to do anything major with. Hopefully it all comes together.

You're probably right, Kaybar, a lot of wilderness would be no good... but recruiting 300 midgets to live in a perfect recreation of "Hobbiton"? Awesome!

Bmfstunner, please come up with constructive and/or more imaginative criticism than simply calling somebody's idea "stupid." It makes you look bad. Do you know how much travel to New Zealand has increased because of people wanting to vacation where Middle Earth was filmed?

You wouldn't NEED to market a LotR theme park because everybody knows what it is! You'd just say: "Lord of the Rings. Theme Park. Come now." And people would go there in droves.