“We will rely on our company’s rich movie heritage and expertise in transforming film concepts into theme park entertainment experiences,” said Ron Meyer, president and COO, Universal Studios. “The Harry Potter stories are among the most compelling of our time. The millions of people who have read the books and seen the movies will now be able to experience the world of Harry Potter in person.”
Inspired the stories by J.K.Rowling, the area will immerse visitors in the world of Harry Potter an allow them to visit such area as Hogsmeade,the Forbidden Forrest, and even Hogswart Castle.
The area is expected to open in 2009, and will include several attractions, shops and resturants that bring the stories to life, as well as a new state of the art attraction that will bring the characters to life in a way that fans have never seen before.
This rumor has been going on for the better part of a year [here, too], and has raised several questions on where the land will go. While it is still unclear, it looks as if some speculation is correct, that part of the Lost Continent area will become Harry Potter. Rides such as Flying Unicorn, and Dueling Dragons will be renamed and rethemed while areas such as Sinbad, Poseidon and Mythos will remain untouched. While this is not official, it does have many fans of the park breathing a sigh of relief, especially since Mythos has been voted "Best Theme Park Resturant" four years in a row beginning in 2002 by Theme Park Insider.
The entire project is expected to be complete in 2010. [Check out TPI readers' plans for a Harry Potter theme park from four years ago.]
Update: See http://media.universalorlando.com/harrypotter/ for Universal's press release and handout art as well as the anouncement webcast.
(Seriously, if you were going to kill the main character, and burn much of your fan base in the process, you probably wouldn't have committed to a multi-million dollar capital investment like this.)
Well good news is that they are finally investing money into he parks!
Maybe this will jarr Disney out of indiffernce and the mythic beastly kingdom or Narnia will appear soon.
Erik, did I read that right? Are they really going to rename and retheme Dueling Dragons?! In my opinion, that is a very bad move.
Something else, will they only cut away land from LC or will they also cut some out from JP? They could move the JP Gate back a little. Afterall the gate is a good deal away from the actual beginning of the themed parts of the island (i.e. restaurants, rides).
Mostly curious I am of the new state-of-the-art attraction they are talking about. Will it be a new coaster? or just another lame motion ride, or both combined?
if they retheme Dueling Dragons, I'm going to throw up. They can do whatever the heck they want with flying unicorn, but they better not do Dueling Dragons.
"Inspired the stories by J.K.Rowling, the area will immerse visitors in the world of Harry Potter an allow them to visit such area as Hogsmeade,the Forbidden Forrest, and even Hogswart Castle..."
Ok... I liked most of the books, and the movies so far, but I'm not enough of a fan of the series to get too excited about this.
HOWEVER -- I am enough of a fan to want to point out (and correct) some spelling and wording errors!
"Forbidding Forrest" should be "Black Forest" or "Dark Forest." Regardless, there's only one 'r' in 'forest' if it's being used as a noun vs. a proper name.
"Hogswart" should be "Hogwart's."
There should be a space between the author's initials and her last name.
'an' should probably have been 'and' (in "an allow").
Keep the peace(es).
What the Sentinel has been posting is unfounded, and merely speculation. It COULD come to be, but for the most part its speculation. The only official thing to come out of Universal was just saying that they are going to be bringing Harry Potter to IOA.
What can happen?
This is what I see as being the most likely solution.
Flying Unicorn changed to something involving Buckbeak. The station changes to Hagrids Hut, add a few props, and the kids love it.
Dueling Dragons turns into something like Slytherins Dueling Dragons and they got the Hungarian Horntail Vs. The Chinese Firebolt. That way they dont have to change too much of the queue, just slap a new coat of paint on the two tracks, and everyone's happy.
Twenty Acres sounds HUGE, but if you look at it, is really not. I see them as ripping out Sindbad and using half of it for HP and the other half for Lost Continent. Maybe they'll finally do something with the closed shops next to poseidons Fury. They could also do something with all the space beneath Dueling Dragons. That is a lot of open space there. There is also the huge area that goes between the Pizza Predatoria and the Flying Unicorn. Not to mention there is a large area in Jurassic Park that once was The Triceratops Encounter, and underneath the bridge is a huge area that used to hold the Island Skipper Tours. The one problem I've always had with Universal is that they always seemed to have lots of unused space with closed attractions, yet they were very quick to close an attraction to build a new one, i.e. Kong for Mummy, BTTF for Simpsons.
I guess since HP is coming, we can count out a new JP attraction any time soon.
For some strange reason, I thought you were quoting straight from the press release, and that they were the ones who'd gotten it wrong.
No worries. I was merely being persnickety. After all, look what happened to me when I tried to spell "claustrophobically" in one of my own posts. It came out as "claustrophically" or some such silliness.
Oh, and David? FYI -- It is actually the "Dark Forest." You need not take my word for it. Simply play the DVD of the first movie ('Sorcerers Stone') up to the scene where they've just arrived at Hogwart's, and Dumbledore is making his start-of-term announcements. He very clearly says (among other things) "The Dark Forest is out of bounds..."
Anyway... From what Erik is saying, it sounds like the Orlando Sentinel piece was more speculation than anything else.
Have a great weekend, all. I think I need a BIG mug of mint tea...
As far as HP... I noticed some of you are still with the retheming of the Lost Continent. If you listen to the video announcement (in Dumbeldors office... im sorry if the spelling is off... ), they state it is an additional 3acres or something like that. A theme park within a theme park. No mention of retheming or taking the existing rides/shows away or incorporating them into the new stuff. Hogwarts, will look like hogwarts. there will be the forest, and also Hogsmeade - all with new rides etc. And it will be as close to the real thing... looks wise. They do a great job... I cant wait.
Any way you look at it... with Aquatica in the works now... by the time its finished, and the word spreads...and the new part of IOA, 2009 will be a great year for Universal.
http://www.universalorlando.com/harrypotter/index.html
Oh and to the guy further above that thinks that "everyone (he knows) in the MidWest hates Harry Potter" needs to get out more often. Meet more people, dude.
There is so much potential in it, and there is already a castle built.
Apparently, they are putting over $200 million into this project so that would explain the recent lack of investment!!
The more I think about this the more I like it.
Disney will be kicking themselves for not doing this!!
- There are three pieces of artwork that show the new area. The one that is an Overview (this one) zooms in to pretty extreme detail. Do so, and if you look slightly above the owl's right wing, you'll see what is quite clearly a bit of Dueling Dragons track, and the accompanying castle. The castle has a marquee extension attached to it - does DD currently have this on the queue line? If not, it's probably an addition to bring DD into the Potter theme.
- Opposite from DD is a smaller coaster with a bridge to another island just to the side - quite clearly the Flying Unicorn. The track looks a little more complex than FU's current figure of 8 to me, though this could just be because the artist is trying to make it actually seem a little better than it is. However, if they're going for a quidditch theme, it wouldn't be out of the question to go the whole way and just building a new kiddie coaster, right?
- Behind the Unicorn, a path leads to Hogwarts. This building, at least in this artwork, looks huge, so it's got to be Strongarm, right? It's even in two buildings, so perfect for a queueline/preshow building and a main ride building. Or maybe that's just to keep it accurate to the books... I don't know them very well. Either way, it would make sense for this big plot of land to be the space between the Unicorn and Jurassic Park. If - and this is a very big if - the artwork is at least roughly geographically accurate, that's the only place it can feasibly go.
- As for how much of the Lost Continent is being converted... at the bottom of the artwork is an archway. Given they're focusing on mostly structural overlays, my initial reaction was that this would be the archway already in place, just before Sinbad. However, not only would that leave the remaining LC with just only Mythos and Poseidon, but it would also leave quite a lot of space before reaching DD, whereas in the artwork, we can see it starts at roughly the same place as DD's grounds. So it's clear that this archway (and therefore the beginning of TWWoHP) is either going to cross over between what is currently the Ice Cream stand and the Pitch and Skill Games (the two buildings just before the Dragons/Enchanted Oak plaza area) or at the point just further on where the greenery on either side edges in on the path slightly. (Take a look at an aerial photo to better understand what I mean.) And the building in the middle of the pathways in the artwork will be placed in the centre of what is currently that plaza.
- This backs up the notion that Sinbad will be saved - as will the talking fountain, I expect. (Yay!)
The artwork is pretty explicit on the above points, and remarkably "to scale" for theme park concept art - normally totally out of shape and size. However, where the revealing details regarding Dueling Dragons should be, there is currently an owl's wing. So, though this is now pure guess-work, by using this second picture, we can piece together what I think is the only feasible concept.
Taking a look at the first picture, at the entrance to the land, above the train, we see a building illuminated on the inside by fire. I'm taking this as a possible clue to start with - it even looks like it an attraction entrance - however, more compelling evidence can be seen on the second picture. If you look at the roof of the same building, there's a pretty distinct shape pointing out from the top - a dragon's wing, almost identical to those currently sitting at the entrance to DD. So maybe they stay, but the entrance moves. Or DD's entire entrance plan might be staying exactly as it is. Either way, we can all breathe a sigh of relief that at least Universal don't intend to change one of the park's signature rides too much.
Thank God for the internet.
Universal would be happy to know that I've already ordered my tickets online for the visit I now plan to make in 2010 so I can check out Harry's stomping grounds. I know, I know... what a geek! But I use credit card rebates to pay for my Orlando tickets and I had enough built up to pay for Disney and Universal so I went ahead and did it now. The way both companies raise prices, it's a great investment anyway.
The issue isn't that Harry Potter is coming to IOA, it's whether or not the franchise will actually contribute to the quality of the experience. IOA could put this area up without a single hint of Harry Potter and it would get the same glowing reviews. What this does accomplish for IOA is creating buzz among the park communities and the industry. I bet that 8 out of 10 who've read and watched all the Harry Potter books and movies have no idea that this is happening, and in three years that number may have gotten to 5 out of 10, and it 2010 Harry Potter won't get an average of 1 of 10 of those people to the park. The bottom line is that this is American pop culture we are talking about. If things aren't freshened up, they die. All the buzz is great now, but get back to me in a few years when it opens and we talk about how popular Harry Potter is. If she keeps writing and they keep filming, than it will still be in, if not...it will have faded into recent memory.
As I said before, I'm sure that the actual project will turn out great.
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