Aaronupsidasium

Sam Raimi would be great would be a likely candidate since he has a Disney movie coming out. Gore Verbinski seems like the most logical choice. He's had a long relationship with ILM, especially since he won the Oscar for first film from ILM's new animation studio. Though he's not in Disney's good graces right now since The Lone Ranger and At Wold's End went way over budget (see Andrew Stanton). Brad Bird would be great but he'd butt heads with Lucas and his old regime too much. He's known for being very demanding on his writers and artists at Pixar. There are a lot of younger directors who've done special effects more effectively than Lucas has: Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Rupert Sanders (Snow White & the Huntsman), Joseph Kasinski (Tron Legacy). I have a sinking feeling it's going to be directed by one of Lucas' lackeys (think 2nd unit director of the prequels). Worst case scenario is M. Night Shamylan who Kathleen Kennedy has been a producer for.

From Slashfilm.com

Went Halloween Horror Nights 22 this Sunday and had a fun time despite the crowds. I got five houses in but no tears, I'm going Wed and Thurs with Frequent Fear Pass and Universal was nice enough to extend the event by an hour Sunday since there were so many people. I honestly can say that themed scare zones would be impossible this year if held at the Studios. Just look at the locations: Shrek Alley: walled off for Transformers construction. Annex between Hollywood and Central Park: Any temporary sets would block the Superstar Parade or the site lines for guests watching the parade. Also the bright lighting of the full blown Transformers construction site would ruin the setting. Hollywood: similarly, complex sets would block the guests viewing the parade. They did have some props in the middle of the street that i assumed they rolled out after the park closed. Sting Alley (New York): the lights and walls from Transformers is still pretty distracting. So that leaves Production Central, New York, San Fransisco, Central Park and KidZone which puts all of the houses and scare zones on the left and right of the park with the entire middle section as a major dead zone.

"Amercia" kind of sounds like George W Bush trying to say thank you in French.

According to Wikipedia, Six Flags was bought by Premier Parks, not the other way around. Premier already owned Adventure World and the other parks. I've assumed that Mark Shapiro had been trying to sell SFA as park or as real estate which is why they didn't build any major rides between 2003 and 2010. Since Adventure World/SFA is technically my home park (haven't been there in 8 years), the early Premier management added a new ride each season and the park was pretty fun and exciting to go each year.

Disney fans mock the ride because if you following the story scene by scene, it makes it that Ursela is the hero of the story. I think most WDW guests over 8 will be wondering why there isn't a climax during the ride.

Doesn't the Intimin Drop Towers have terrible reliability as well? Pitfall (Intimin, right?) was torn down due to maintenance costs and I've heard the giant drop towers have tons of downtime too

Disagree. You are not making a reservation at a restaurant. You do not get to pick your return time, it's almost arbitrary what time even get. And to the people who claiming it's easy to get around these enormous, crowded parks, are you going with children? I have hard time believing that a family of five can manage three small and making a bunch of reservations in the middle of the afternoon. If this was actually a problem, they would have changed the policy ten years ago. I usually show up late and am the only person in the fastpass line. One would assume that a lot of people toss their passes. Can Disney get off their high horse and admit they're just trying to get rid of the complimentary fast pass for the paid/resort passes?

The Snow White fairytale (which includes the Seven Dwarfs) is public domain. Disney only owns the artistic designs to the characters not the actual story.

I think you missed the boat on that by about 40 years. The Cyclone has a completely steel structure, which I assume was done after it was condemned, refurbished and reopened in the early 70's.

I agree. I had one great ride in the front car but every time I got the back car it felt like being on a jackhammer. I tried the single rider line so i didn't ask to where to sit which was in a mistake thanks to having the slowest coaster operation ever but that's another subject.

So there's not going to be any alcohol at Gaston's Pub, right? I remember that the disneyland-style parks are supposed to be dry. I think an End of Line club would make Tomorrowland a lot less boring.

Isn't Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years the busiest period for Disney World. Also, I remember Test Track have to close for just rain (not thunder like most outdoor rides) because of the amount of computers on the track. So they would have a relatively dry period in Orlando to fix out any kinks vs. the summer season when it would be closed for long periods each day.

Last I heard was that GE still owns 49% of NBC Universal and that Kabletown was more interested in the NBC/cable programming. Though it would be easy for them use synergy to advertise the hell out of it via they're cable and internet resources.

connecting two parks with a single attraction. Such an out of the box idea that I was incredibly skeptical. It's radical enough to rustle a lot of feathers but will probably be a success with guests.

Potterland 2.0 is going to be a huge game changer in Orlando and the theme park industry. TWWOHP is the new standard of theme parks both in immersiveness and the zeitgeist around it. I'm just hoping Gringotts will be more family friendly and feature better storytelling than FJ. And as for Transformers, movie fans would have had a heart attack if a Spielberg attraction was replaced with a Michael Bay one.

According to Box Office Mojo, Harry Potter is consistently the highest grossing movie each year in Japan, probably Asia's most affluent and travel friendly market. And I have seen lots of pictures of bootleg Potter merch from several years ago in China and India.

I've never been inside the Toon Lagoon amphitheater but Universal says that holds 2000 people and looks like it has a lot more stage to work with than Fear Factor. It would be interesting if they would be able to move the sprung tents to IOA (probably between Dudley and JP) since they would bring so many people into a bottle necked area during the Jaws demolition/whatever construction.

is it safe to assume that HHN will be at IOA next year? Even though there isn't usually a scare zone in that area, the back of the park gets way too packed. Can't imagine how bad it'll be if it's a dead end. Also if the fear factor stage in demolished too, the only other place for Bill and Ted would be at the Toon Lagoon amphitheater or inside a sound stage.

Universal has the theme park rights for Dreamworks Animation which includes Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon, all of which could support an E ticket attraction and densely themed environments. Just take a look at the exteriors of Universal Singapore. Hopefully they'll actually bring in the marines at the end of last Jaws voyage

I think Transformers will be the most overrated ride. Everybody seems to want Transformers to come to Florida while complaining about Potterland and Avatarland. Well, those franchises were critically acclaimed and awarded within the film industry, while Transformers Revenge of the Fallen deservedly won worst movie of the year at the Raspberry Awards and the third one was almost as bad. From the looks of Singapore, the attraction looks to be a lot 3D screens and military gung ho crap, which was the dumbest part of the movies. At least they could play up some of the classic Universal snark with how stupid the idea of transforming robots are.

The Little Mermaid at the Magic Kingdom. The ride in DCA looks like a total snooze. Slow ommnimover and really bad storytelling.

that sounds pretty terrible. Hopefully they were maintenance and staffing flukes, not a downward spiral. IOA has always been a pretty awkward park since Universal doesn't own most of the licenses and each island has it's own specific guidelines in that license. One example, I heard they were allowed to put anything R-rated in the Seuss Landing for HHN. In Potter's case, one of my favorite things is when they have all the different team members from the different Islands and attractions waving goodbye as you leave, totally decked in their themed uniforms, while Potter is represented by a member in some bland black uniforms with a crest. Not sure if this is a contract not allowing costumes out of Hogsmeade, but it would have really solidified IOA's theme of all these different stories and characters living in one place. I have faith in Universal since Seuss Landing was one of the reasons Rowling allowed Universal to make WWOHP and she has the power to veto phase 2 or cancel the contract after 10 years for whatever reason, probably including her land being surrounded by a swamp and chipped paint.

I don't understand how people are getting "guests are ignoring the rest of IOA besides Potter" from. I usually go to Universal during Columbus Day week. In 2008 I spent an afternoon at IOA and pretty much all of the attractions were walk-on besides Dudley, Poseidon and Dragons (which was one train operation). Ground had been broken for Potterland but this doesn't sound too different from years past during the off season. Two years later during the same off season week, Hulk, Poseidon, Jurassic Park and Seuss Trolley were at least 30 minutes and Spidey and Dudley were around an hour during most of the afternoon, plus long lines for IOA institutions like Mythos and the JP Watering Hole' Top Shelf Margarita. Potter had long lines of course, but not significantly worse than the rest of the park. Sure WWOHP is the new standard in the theme park industry but the average park guest still won't pass up a giant awesome green roller coaster or even a margarita on there way to Hogwarts

I'm getting a feeling that people are less annoyed with Potter than that Universal Hollywood just isn't good enough to deserve the WWOHP, especially since I believe it will be the park's only themed land. Which would just make a park full of concrete and umbrellas look even crappier sitting right next to hogsmeade.