Who wouldn't want to visit the safest place on Earth? Starting in April, the Warner Bros. Studio Tour in Leavesden, outside London, will open a new exhibit allowing visitors to walk through Gringotts Bank.
These will be the restored sets upon which Warner Bros. shot the Harry Potter films and a permanent addition to the tour, which also features the Hogwarts Great Hall, the Forbidden Forest, Platform 9 3/4 with the Hogwarts Express, and Diagon Alley.
Of course, Gringotts turns out to be far from the safest place on Earth, as fans who have ridden Universal Studios Florida's Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts can attest. In great storytelling tradition, something inevitably goes terribly wrong. On the Warner Bros. tour, visitors will be reconnect with that experience from the films by walking through the lobby of the bank and entering Bellatrix Lestrange's vault for a photo opp.
Since this is a studio tour and not Orlando's theme park ride, the focus will be upon the craft of filmmaking, including a look at the props and costumes used in the films' Gringotts scenes, such as the prosthetics used to transform actor Warwick Davis into the goblin Griphook.
The look for Gringotts Bank was inspired by the lobby of Australia House, Australia's 100-year-old diplomatic mission in London, but the Leavesden studios is where those scenes were filmed.
The 16,500-square-foot studio tour addition will open on April 6. Tickets for the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London cost £43 for adults and £35 for children ages 5-15 and must be booked in advance on the tour's website. And yes, the Studio Tour sells Butterbeer, too.
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