Now that we know Universal Studios Hollywood will be closing its Fast & Furious - Supercharged in less than two weeks, let's dive into what went wrong on this attraction.
Fast & Furious - Supercharged opened in June 2015 as the "grand finale" of the park's famed Studio Tour. But that was not the first Fast & Furious-themed encounter on the tour. From 2006 to 2013, the tram tour featured a stop to watch two cars inspired by "The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift," mounted on robot arms, as a supposed demonstration of special effects. The "effects" convinced exactly no one, as the vehicles did not move like they were driving, much less drifting, and instead came off as just a couple of expensive decorations atop robot arms. Which, to be fair, they were.
Studio lore is that F&F producers howled at the association with their brand, and Universal closed the "Extreme Close-Up" encounter officially after just over seven years, during which the cars often were "temporarily unavailable" behind closed show doors anyway.
Given that as a baseline, just about anything would look better than the dancing cars.
At first, Supercharged gave Universal's Fast & Furious franchise the love it deserved. Remember, F&F has brought in nearly $7.5 billion box office worldwide, making it one of the world's most popular entertainment franchises. Its diverse cast also allowed Universal to connect with audiences who at the time had not often seen themselves represented on screen, and Universal wanted those audiences to see themselves represented in the parks, too.
So the dancing cars were out, and a new experience that featured the stars of the Fast & Furious movies got the green light - and not just that, the leading role on Universal's original and most popular theme park attraction.
Many fans have forgotten, but Fast & Furious - Supercharged opened to strong positive reviews from fans and media. That enthusiasm helped convince Universal Parks leaders to bring the attraction to Orlando, where it opened as the replacement for Disaster! in Universal Studios Florida in 2018.
So what went wrong? Allow me to suggest three missteps.
As originally presented, Fast & Furious - Supercharged was much more than the show in the building at the end of the Studio Tour. Universal introduced the attraction through an Act 1 build-up earlier in the tour. Federal agents interrupted the tour host via a "video call" on the tram's screens to warn visitors about a wanted suspect in the area. The calls continued, eventually revealing the person of interest to be Dominic Toretto, whose Dodge Charger has been spotted on the backlot. Eventually, federal agents ordered the tour to stop, revealing that a high-value witness was on our tram and directing us to "safety" in a nearby warehouse while agents prepared to move in to arrest the Fast & Furious gang.
The set-up worked to help transition the tour from a demonstration of movie-making sets and techniques into an actual movie experience. You started the tour by watching where movies were made, and, by the end, you found yourself starring in one. It was a brilliant framing strategy - one that helped sell the authenticity of the totally fake encounter while helping fans to feel like they now were part of the "family" of the Fast & Furious franchise.
But then, Universal started cutting that first act.
The Universal Studios Hollywood Studio Tour is perhaps the most dynamic major theme park attraction in the world. Due to filming schedules throughout the property, the route, timing, and locations featured on the tour can change daily. Fitting the video calls from the federal agents into that mix added more variables to what already is a bit of scheduling juggle. I don't know why Universal eventually decided to just quit trying to fit them into the show, but it wasn't long after Supercharged's debut that many fans started reporting missing the set-up on their tours.
And without that set-up, the story lost its rationale for sending us into the warehouse, making the encounter there jarring and less convincing.
Without a story, there's just the show. And this show is not what people come to Universal's Studio Tour to experience. Once inside the warehouse, trams drove past an opening set with show cars from the series into two rooms with screens on the right side of the tram. Using a Pepper's Ghost-style effect, the screens displayed a party that became a federal raid. From there, the crew instructs our tram driver to drive us to safety, but - in the final room - Owen Shaw and his crew attack the tram, leading to a simulated freeway chase.
Beyond that first scene in the warehouse, it's all screens, using the same 360/3D tech first deployed for the Universal's new King Kong attraction back in 2010. But people do not come to Universal to ride the Studio Tour to watch entertainment on screens. That is what we do at home and at the movie theater. On the Studio Tour, we come to see the real places where that filmed entertainment is made. We want to see movie sets, not movie screens.
Again, at first, the Act 1 set-up created context that transitioned us from that mindset into one where we were accepting of watching a movie unfold around us. Without that context, however, the weakness of a screen-based attraction on the Studio Tour was exposed - one that could not rely on unseen, jaw-dropping technology the way that Kong could when it debuted years before, because many of us already had seen it then.
Just months after Supercharged's debut, Universal announced that it would bring the attraction to Orlando. But it took three years before that happened. During that time, the backlash against Supercharged in Hollywood had started.
Without a Studio Tour, Universal Studios Florida slotted Supercharged into the old Disaster! building, which had been constructed as an Orlando home for the Earthquake encounter on Hollywood's Studio Tour. So it already had a faux tram vehicle in place to house the experience. But what to do about the set-up? Why are we getting on this ride?
Universal Orlando's explanation - that we were boarding a party bus - invited ridicule, and fans swiftly obliged. What's worse - no set-up or a bad set-up? Fans and themed entertainment designers will be able to use Supercharged as an example to debate that question for years to come. Regardless, Fast & Furious - Supercharged opened to reviews that ranged from polite to hostile, with the ride generating increasingly poor customer reviews as the years passed.
We no longer live in a world where Southern California and Central Florida can be considered separate media markets. The Internet links fans worldwide, and as soon as fans at Universal Orlando started smack-talking Supercharged online, many of the fans in Southern California who had not yet noticed Supercharged's Act 1 cuts and the reliance on screens began to see the flaws in the experience.
And in just three years, Universal leadership was distancing itself from the ride, questioning the decision to bring it to Orlando in the first place.
Universal Studios Hollywood has said that it will replace Supercharged with "an exciting all-new Studio Tour attraction to be announced soon." Let's hope that Universal learns its lessons from the failure of Supercharged and resists the temptation to replace the encounter with another IP that is just filmed to show on the same screens.
Universal is revamping its Studio Tour as it continues the transformation of the Universal City property. The Studio Tour entrance is tipped to move to the Lower Lot, as Universal looks for a replacement for its Simpsons-themed Springfield land next to current Studio Tour entrance. (That licensing contact expires in a couple of years, and since the IP is now controlled by Disney, no one expects it to be renewed.) So Universal might choose to demolish the current Supercharged show building and offer something completely different in its place.
But if Universal has plans to retain that building, tomorrow I will dive in with one suggestion for what might go in there.
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It was bad when it debuted and got worse as they peeled away the context for what was, again, a bad attraction. The dialogue was cringey, the special effects stunk and it made for a terrible finale to the tram. May this attraction be forgotten quickly.
I first saw F&F:S in 2016 on the Studio Tour when it still contained the set up on the video screens. I remember the onscreen action being cartoonish, but a fun finale to a tour whose highlight was the filming of a scene from The Good Place.
I went on the Orlando version last month because I had time to kill and the ride was a walk on. I thought the queue was good and the actors in the pre show did a solid job . The ride itself wasn’t great, but I think the same tram system can work with a retheme that includes a more immersive scene and higher definition screens like the one used in the Bourne Stuntacular.
Bourne spectacular eh... anyone else think that would be a cool idea for a reboot? OOH or terminator!
Let's not gloss over how horrible the preshow is. It's almost impossible for me to accept these people as professional actors. You know, people that can do it for a living.
The biggest problem with Supercharged is that it doesn't fit the Fast & Furious brand. When people think Fast & Furious, they think cool cars that drive fast, not slow-moving party buses. From that conceit alone Supercharged, especially the Florida installation, was always doomed for failure.
I think the attraction failed because it was neither "fast" nor "furious", and explains why Universal is going the roller coaster route for this IP and likely doubling down with one in Orlando as well (to replace RRR).
I do agree that the lack of setup on the tram tour hurts the experience, because it end up being a strange diversion on an attraction that is primarily geared towards movie making, not movie watching. The on-tram videos helped to set up the experience and gave it a sense of place as part of the tour. Now, if the "Supercharged" experience utilized the F&F IP, but also delved into the world of movie car chases utilizing shots, cars, and stunts from various iconic films in the past, it could probably succeed without a setup. However, without that setup, Supercharged was just a boring side-trip and created discontinuity on an attraction that has such an iconic history.
I also agree that the installation at USF hurt the version at USH because USF provided that needed backstory with the elaborate queue and in the beginning included live actors. However, the overall reception of the attraction in Florida probably rubbed off to the tram segment in California, because if you rode the Florida version first, you would see that the California version was inferior because of it being shoehorned into the tram tour.
Ultimately though, I think because this attraction arose from the tram tour, it was always going to be difficult for Universal to create the sense of speed and intensity needed to accurately portray the F&F franchise.
Good riddance. Aside from the Simpsons on the upper lot, it's one of the worst theme park attractions to grace a major park. I hope Universal has learned its lesson with screens, but the fact they cranked out something like VillianCon in 2023 suggests otherwise.
I love the Bourne Show. However the car animations and the helicopter stuff (all of the car stuff; most of the helicopter) sucks. I do think they could do the Bourne type show there especially if there is a Pre-Show (IRL fight scenes are some of my favorite things).
Hell they could do a lagoon show with motorboats and more actors and fighting. They could leverage other parts of the park for street fights in the middle of an alley. On a roof top. If they had an all day occurence with a culmination in a nightime spectacular then that might be the coolest thing ever (i want my waterworld equivalent and i still havent seen it... trying not to spoil it by watching youtube because ill go to hollywood one day).
If How to train your dragon land at epic is telling this cohesive story why cant Bourne do it all over USF. Mindshare in the public for spies is probably 30% mission impossible. 45% James bond. That 15% sliver of Bourne could capitalize on our soon ending Mission Impossible series and who the hell knows who the next Bond is right now? Synergy!!!'
@Russel Meyer(RRR) That's just a theory, A COASTER THEORY!I don't think they will copy and paste F&F coaster over to Orlando for 2 reasons
1 they want hollywood to have something of its own so people actually want to come, and
2 the layout and size of rrr is not the same as hollywood. would love that coaster though it looks super cool!
I think if they did a ghostbusters theme for a hanging launch coaster (like Volcano) it could make use of those mostly pointless New York facades and the. they coupd retheme Fallon (he isnt evergreen is he?) to eco#1 stationwagon ride. Again Universal live actors is where it's at... put the lady in tights in the room casting spells. It could be your proton packs going wild. On board audio is a must these days so if they can get some of the actors involved and maybe give us an animatronic stay puff marshmallow man somewhere along the course i think it will be cool. They could go for a tempesto style ride with a small footprint elsewhere. Im most meh on coasters these days. I want a new Jaws first.
Give me an East Coast backdraft show..
@epicuniversefan - I would agree that the coaster coming to USF won't be a clone of Hollywood Drift, but that doesn't mean they can't theme it with the F&F IP and have similar elements and features. In fact, I think it would demonstrate Universal's faith in the franchise to be able to support 2 unique coaster attractions on opposite coasts. Let's face it, Supercharged at USF is running on fumes right now in terms of popularity, and as TH often points out, USF and IOA are going to need lots of new attractions in the coming years to keep Epic from cannibalizing attendance. The removal of the tram segment in Hollywood in advance of the opening of Hollywood Drift establishes a pattern that could be mimicked in Florida with the announcement of a new coaster to come shortly after RRR completes its run and the closure of Supercharged a few months before a unique F&F coaster opens at USF.
The real question is how long will it take for Universal to get the new coaster built at USF? Given that they will need to remove RRR, but do not need build the new coaster in Florida with such complicated engineering challenges (hillside/topography and earthquake mitigation standards required in California) I would expect it will have a similar, or maybe slightly shorter timeline than Hollywood Drift (just over 2 years). That means if they start work in fall 2025, the new coaster could probably be ready sometime in early 2028 with Supercharged likely sunsetting a few months prior when the queue is converted for HHN in August 2027.
As others point out, a F&F attraction that didn't feel "fast" was a bad way to go. A roller coaster theme fits better, half surprised they're not retheming Rip Rocket for it.
Universal has become as big of a joke as Disney.
Why? For closing one of their worse attractions? Elaborate.
It was always a boneheaded decision to add this to the Studio Tour when it was essentially identical to King Kong: 360 3-D earlier in the attraction. If guests hadn't already experienced that, reception would likely have been somewhat more positive, but doing the same thing twice less than 45 minutes apart isn't exactly exciting. I do think Supercharged works a bit better as a standalone attraction in Florida, but it follows the same pattern as many Universal attractions from that era where the set-up is great but the ride itself disappoints.
Wouldn't at all be surprised if USF went with a F&F coaster, on the lines of VC next door, to compliment the park.
@MIKEW - they could call it, The F&F Headache.
Wicked would be the best bet. They clearly want to bring it into the parks and it could be a family friendly attraction with wide appeal.
My biggest issue was that it was basically the exact same "ride" system as King Kong earlier in the studio tour at Hollywood. We had TWO video tubes on the tour, when we needed variety. But this just brings me back to lamenting they didn't just rebuild the amazing live-action King Kong attraction after it burned down, instead cheapening out with a screen.
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Good CGI on rides is passable, at best. Cartoonishly bad CGI is simply an abomination .