These days to compete as a theme park you can’t just offer the wildest roller coasters or the most rigged carnival games. You need to straight-up transport people into entirely new worlds, provide the kind of tangible escapist fantasy that virtual reality can only dream of. What else are they paying you for? So it’s no surprise that the only companies that can pull this off are movie studios already used to lavishly producing physical sets to make the impossible possible.
Disneyland and Disney World are obviously iconic theme parks. Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge generated a ton of excitement by giving attendees a chance to step foot into a galaxy far, far away… complete with space Coca-Cola. But Universal Studios Orlando has been a powerful rival this whole time. And they’re about to become even more powerful with the Epic Universe expansion coming in 2023.
The centerpiece of the Florida theme park for the past few years has been Harry Potter’s Wizarding World, an immaculately detailed recreation of J.K. Rowling’s magic imagination complete with rides, wand-making workshops, and all sorts of hidden Harry Potter details everywhere you look. I’m so over Harry Potter but still dug the immersion, as have countless other attendees considering the popularity of the park.
The long-talked about Epic Universe park sounds like a way to carry that idea forward to other beloved #brands you’d love to just live inside. The 750-acre facility (detailed in a quarterly earnings call) will not only feature new Harry Potter attractions but also perhaps a world based on DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon. Meanwhile, Universal Japan’s long-awaited Super Nintendo World theme park opens in Osaka in 2020. When it comes over to the states, expect Epic Universe to be its home.
For more on theme parks here are the Super Nintendo World attractions we hope to see, and learn more about the movies featured in Universal’s haunted Halloween maze.
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