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Ride the Movies
“Ride the movies”: That was the spirit of Universal Studios Florida when it opened in 1990, but its star-studded premiere was more of a blunder than a blockbuster.
On its first day, many of the park’s headlining rides experienced downtime due to technical difficulties—attractions like Earthquake: The Big One, Kongfrontation, and JAWS. In fact, JAWS closed for a complete overhaul after just two troublesome months. The highly anticipated Back to the Future: The Ride missed the park’s opening, being delayed until its sophomore year.
In time, Universal Studios Florida bounced back. The park sorted out a good deal of its technical holdups, also reopening the upgraded JAWS attraction in 1993.
At this point, Universal Orlando had moved on from its opening-day obstacles and was preparing to usher in its next generation of attractions. In 1996, Universal Orlando opened a heart-pounding stage show, T2-3D, but more was on the horizon. Behind the scenes, work had already begun on the park’s first new ride since opening.
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Jurassic Thing
As early as 1992, rumblings suggested Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park could be adapted into an attraction at Universal Studios Florida. The Orlando Sentinel reported that the movie theme park had plans to unleash its Jurassic Park attraction by 1996.
The dinosaur-themed ride would take over the plot of land in the back of the park between The Wild Wild Wild West Stunt Show and Back to the Future: The Ride. A section of this site was the former set of Swamp Thing, a 1990 TV series, but it was now earmarked for the Jurassic Park ride.
Meanwhile, Universal Orlando was also developing a second theme park next door to the existing Universal Studios Florida. The second gate was far along into the design process until a major licensor withdrew from the project. Without this partner, Universal Orlando’s second park had to be almost entirely reimagined. Universal went back to the drawing board to find replacement ideas and intellectual properties for its unbuilt park. However, the ideas couldn’t be ordinary—they had to be popular IPs that would draw in large crowds.
Thankfully, Universal already had a chartbusting franchise lined up: Jurassic Park. The 1993 masterpiece was a smash success as the highest-grossing film of Spielberg’s illustrious career, making it the perfect IP to top the bill of Universal Orlando’s newest park.
Universal Orlando uprooted its plans for a Jurassic Park ride—and ultimately an entire land—to its second gate, Islands of Adventure.
Reimagining a USF Expansion
By relocating the Jurassic Park ride next door, the expansion plans for the unused Swamp Thing set at Universal Studios Florida were back to square one.
The purpose for the ride was to keep the existing Universal Studios Florida park relevant once the brand-new Islands of Adventure opened. Universal Orlando was undergoing a major transformation from a standalone theme park into a multi-day destination with hotels, an entertainment district, and a second gate. Executives wanted to keep Universal Studios Florida fresh by rolling out an exciting ride shortly after the debut of Islands of Adventure. The expansion could balance interest and attendance between the two parks.
Around 1995, MCA Planning and Development—now known as Universal Creative—brainstormed new ride concepts for the expansion plot in Universal Studios Florida.
Orlando, We Have a Deadline
An early ride concept was an indoor roller coaster based on the 1995 Ron Howard film, Apollo 13. Guests would have entered a recreation of the Vehicle Assembly Building from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It was an indoor thrill coaster, sending riders on an interstellar journey to the moon and back.
The Apollo 13 roller coaster was an innovative design that would have taken a long time to produce. Universal’s decision makers became worried the revolutionary roller coaster could possibly miss its projected opening on the heels of Islands of Adventure. For that reason, the Apollo 13 roller coaster was scratched in favor of an attraction with a quicker turnaround.
An outdoor attraction was briefly considered for the expansion site, but Universal didn’t want to upset nearby residents with added noise—the neighboring Islands of Adventure already had an extensive roster of outdoor thrill rides.
Family-Friendly Concepts
Universal went in a more balanced direction by exploring ideas for an indoor family attraction. Some possibilities included a Nickelodeon dark ride and another themed to The Simpsons parodying Orlando tourism.
These cartoony concepts had potential, but Universal’s executives had second thoughts about building a ride for kids. Therefore, Universal changed the direction of the ride, requesting an attraction for older guests instead. The Nickelodeon and Simpsons ride concepts were called off.
Despite indecisiveness about the ride, its deadline never changed. By 1997, higher-ups still expected a ground-up attraction within a few years to complement Universal Orlando’s second gate. The clock was ticking, and Universal had to commit.
Universal’s Creatives drafted two dark ride options—only one would be chosen, eventually becoming the park’s next ride.
Stephen King’s Nightmare
Universal’s Creatives, including John Murdy, fully embraced the thrilling assignment with its first option: a dark ride inspired by the horrifying work of novelist Stephen King. The only known scene in the ride was its false ending. Allegedly, the ride would have pulled into a fake unload station with an exit door and control booth. To the riders’ surprise, the exit gushed blood in the vein of The Shining, and Pennywise the Dancing Clown from It took over the ride controls, plunging riders deeper into the nightmare.
Here Come the Men in Black
The other dark ride concept was based on a movie that hadn’t even hit theaters yet: Men in Black, coming from Lowell Cunningham’s comic book series of the same name. The upcoming action-comedy film, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, was a theme park ride waiting to happen. The movie’s trailer was all the inspiration Universal’s Creatives, including Craig Hanna, needed to come up with a ride concept. The idea was an interactive attraction that put riders in the alien-zapping action of an MIB agent.
The Final Decision
The two options were presented to Universal’s upper management for their approval. Both the Stephen King and Men in Black concepts were brilliant. The storyboards were so good, management couldn’t decide between the two options.
So, Universal let the people decide by surveying the public about the two concepts. Oddly enough, the test-market results were split down the middle; it was a tie with no clear winner.
The concepts went back to senior management one final time to make a decision. The higher-ups wanted the most popular attraction possible for attendance reasons. In the meeting, the point was made that the Stephen King attraction would have been too scary for most guests—despite how popular it may have been with horror fans. Men in Black, which was the highest-grossing film of the year, appealed to a broader demographic.
Thus, Universal greenlit the Men in Black attraction and axed the Stephen King concept.
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