News Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind attraction confirmed for Epcot

[MagicHappens1971]

The ride experience itself is stellar and honestly doesn’t feature any gaps in money spent/quality. The queue area is dull, sterile, and cheap looking, the pre show room effect was very cool, but as others have said, it would be better if it was hidden from view because you expect to be walking into a room, unlike Rise, where you really never know what’s happening next. The scene at the end of the ride with the guardians on the screen is barren and again, dull, as is the exit corridor, which has already been discussed in great length.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

I remember 10 years ago how crazy the $300+ million budget for Radiator Springs Racers was, but again, you can at least see where the money went. All that rockwork, the AAs, how long the track is etc.

I've actually heard Radiator Springs Racers was only slightly north of $200 Million, which on its own was still enough to ellicit long, low whistles at the expense.

Accounting for Inflation, you could build 1.7 copies of Radiator Springs Racers for the price of Cosmic Rewind. Cadillac Mountain Range and all.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I've actually heard Radiator Springs Racers was only slightly north of $200 Million, which on its own was still enough to ellicit long, low whistles at the expense.

Accounting for Inflation, you could build 1.7 copies of Radiator Springs Racers for the price of Cosmic Rewind. Cadillac Mountain Range and all.

I believe the discrepancy comes from how much of the Cadillac Range is attributed to the attraction versus the land. I haven’t done the check, but I’d be curious to how how all of Cars Land overlays with the Cosmic Rewind site.

 

[celluloid]

Cosmic Rewind cost more than all of Hogsmeade as it was in 2009 to open in 2010. That should say it all.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Cosmic Rewind cost more than all of Hogsmeade as it was in 2009 to open in 2010. That should say it all.

More like over twice as much. Hogsmead was done for almost nothing and Universal couldn’t do that again.

 

[celluloid]

More like over twice as much.

Not over, but close. 265 was Forbidden Journey and the entire land's conversion and builds. Either way, disgusting to think about that difference and one ride.

 

[disneygeek90]

For real.

People seem to keep forgetting that Cosmic Rewind is the single most expensive attraction in Walt Disney World History. By about 100 million dollars. Does it look like it? Does it feel like it?

For the price of this one ride you could build half of Animal Kingdom.

Instead we get one ride that looks basically like Space Mountain, an attraction that isn't known for its eye-popping visuals? If you're gonna spend more money than ever before, shouldn't this ride look like nothing we've ever seen before?

If it cost as much as Rise of the Resistance and Expedition: Everest COMBINED, why is it so much less impressive?

Have you been on it? It looks and feels nothing like space mountain. I found the projections to be crisp enough that you legitimately felt you were traveling through the stars and alongside the Guardians.

 

[DCBaker]

Lots of umbrellas have been added -

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

Have you been on it? It looks and feels nothing like space mountain. I found the projections to be crisp enough that you legitimately felt you were traveling through the stars and alongside the Guardians.

As I've said, I have not been on it, which is why I've said nothing about how it feels but only how it looks. Here again are two stills from videos of Cosmic Rewind and Space Mountain. Can you tell just by looking which one is which?

There is, of course, more to both experiences, but you've got to be kidding if you don't think much of both these rides look the same.

 

[disneygeek90]

As I've said, I have not been on it, which is why I've said nothing about how it feels but only how it looks. Here again are two stills from videos of Cosmic Rewind and Space Mountain. Can you tell just by looking which one is which?

There is, of course, more to both experiences, but you've got to be kidding if you don't think much of both these rides look the same.

View attachment 638209View attachment 638210

The videos don’t do it justice. At all. I don’t know how else to explain it to you because it is completely different in person.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

The videos don’t do it justice. At all. I don’t know how else to explain it to you because it is completely different in person.

You're telling me disco balls in the dark look super different in Space Mountain from how they look in Cosmic Rewind?

Like I said, I know there's more to both rides. Obviously the giant screen with Eson looks different from Space Mountain, just as the Strobe Tunnel looks different from anything in Cosmic Rewind. But the "negative space" in between . . . come on. Be serious.

 

[DavidDL]

Random, possibly stupid thought but I wonder how much attraction cost was delegated to stuff like securing copyrighted music or appearances by the stars of the films? Just a genuine curiosity from me. I know what the Guardians likely made isn’t anywhere near comparison but people like Robert Downey Jr. got an up front payment of $20 million for Endgame.

So with all these recent IP attractions starring celebs, it’s just sort of an interesting shower thought. How many millions were paid to them, how much was paid to secure copyrighted music and how much was dedicated to the initial R and D of developing this new ride system?

All those things considered, I could see the total price to build inflating. Though, as others have said, something like Rise costs less and has celebs in it, too. It would be fascinating to learn where money is spent and how much where, since I imagine things like demolition costs, etc. are part of the overall budget and could vary widely depending on location, what attraction is being torn down/repurposed, etc.

Fun stuff to think about. From videos, would I have guessed it was the most expensive attraction ever made? Probably not. But I haven’t seen it for myself and heck if I know where and how that kind of money gets spent for stuff like this.

 

[DavidDL]

Double post, sorry.

Something else I think about to is that I remember reading that they went into this one without any sort of storyline, etc. set in stone and they just starting building away once they had the ride system ready to go. Assuming this to be true, maybe a fair amount of funds were spent on retroactively adjusting things to have things make sense within the attraction?

Sort of like DCA 2.0, where since they didn’t quite get it done right the first time, they had to go back and spend more than they would have had to with their initial investment of the park to correct their mistakes. Could be something similar happened here and it ended up costing them more in the long term because they jumped the gun and started building without a solidified direction?

 

[lazyboy97o]

Random, possibly stupid thought but I wonder how much attraction cost was delegated to stuff like securing copyrighted music or appearances by the stars of the films? Just a genuine curiosity from me. I know what the Guardians likely made isn’t anywhere near comparison but people like Robert Downey Jr. got an up front payment of $20 million for Endgame.

So with all these recent IP attractions starring celebs, it’s just sort of an interesting shower thought. How many millions were paid to them, how much was paid to secure copyrighted music and how much was dedicated to the initial R and D of developing this new ride system?

All those things considered, I could see the total price to build inflating. Though, as others have said, something like Rise costs less and has celebs in it, too. It would be fascinating to learn where money is spent and how much where, since I imagine things like demolition costs, etc. are part of the overall budget and could vary widely depending on location, what attraction is being torn down/repurposed, etc.

Fun stuff to think about. From videos, would I have guessed it was the most expensive attraction ever made? Probably not. But I haven’t seen it for myself and heck if I know where and how that kind of money gets spent for stuff like this.

Mission: Breakout! has licensed music and many of the same actors and it cost significantly less. Construction and demolition costs vary between location but not that much within a county to be meaningful. And again, Disney didn’t develop a new ride system, Vekoma put a different seat on one they already developed.

 

[DavidDL]

Mission: Breakout! has licensed music and many of the same actors and it cost significantly less. Construction and demolition costs vary between location but not that much within a county to be meaningful. And again, Disney didn’t develop a new ride system, Vekoma put a different seat on one they already developed.

Hm. It’s definitely an interesting thing to think about! I mean, this is Disney we’re talking about here. Regardless of how one sees them these days, I don’t see them as the type to just go ahead and throw money away on something they don’t have to, especially when they seem to want to cut budgets wherever possible.

So if this really is the most expensive attraction they’ve ever built, then someone higher up had to have been convinced by someone in the chain that it was money that NEEDED to be spent. The only logical conclusion I can draw from that is some kind of miscalculation or paying for errors they didn’t foresee and had to adjust (see my DCA post above) or that there’s truly something, somewhere we just don’t see.

I’d be fascinated to know what’s behind the curtain in this instance.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

Random, possibly stupid thought but I wonder how much attraction cost was delegated to stuff like securing copyrighted music or appearances by the stars of the films? Just a genuine curiosity from me. I know what the Guardians likely made isn’t anywhere near comparison but people like Robert Downey Jr. got an up front payment of $20 million for Endgame.

So with all these recent IP attractions starring celebs, it’s just sort of an interesting shower thought. How many millions were paid to them, how much was paid to secure copyrighted music and how much was dedicated to the initial R and D of developing this new ride system?

All those things considered, I could see the total price to build inflating. Though, as others have said, something like Rise costs less and has celebs in it, too. It would be fascinating to learn where money is spent and how much where, since I imagine things like demolition costs, etc. are part of the overall budget and could vary widely depending on location, what attraction is being torn down/repurposed, etc.

Fun stuff to think about. From videos, would I have guessed it was the most expensive attraction ever made? Probably not. But I haven’t seen it for myself and heck if I know where and how that kind of money gets spent for stuff like this.

Consider this - if Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Glenn Close, and Terry Crews were each paid $20 Million for their contributions to the ride (they weren't, of course, but let's pretend), there would still be $350 Million to account for across the rest of the ride. And that would still be a ridiculously enormous sum for what they built.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Hm. It’s definitely an interesting thing to think about! I mean, this is Disney we’re talking about here. Regardless of how one sees them these days, I don’t see them as the type to just go ahead and throw money away on something they don’t have to, especially when they seem to want to cut budgets wherever possible.

So if this really is the most expensive attraction they’ve ever built, then someone higher up had to have been convinced by someone in the chain that it was money that NEEDED to be spent. The only logical conclusion I can draw from that is some kind of miscalculation or paying for errors they didn’t foresee and had to adjust (see my DCA post above) or that there’s truly something, somewhere we just don’t see.

I’d be fascinated to know what’s behind the curtain in this instance.

Disney has been over spending on attractions for years now. This isn’t something new. “Budget cuts” are not reductions in the budget, they’re cuts to keep things within the already ridiculously high budget. Remember, even adjusting for inflation, Pixar Pier cost more than Expedition Everest. This is a company that tore down half of CommuniCore to replace it with a smaller, less functional but way more expensive building and then still proceeded with the demolition to save face even though the expensive new building had been cancelled.

This isn’t the result of errors and omission, or even recent escalation. It’s the continued results of a broken process, a bloated bureaucracy and a culture of indecision and distrust.

 

[DavidDL]

Disney has been over spending on attractions for years now. This isn’t something new. “Budget cuts” are not reductions in the budget, they’re cuts to keep things within the already ridiculously high budget. Remember, even adjusting for inflation, Pixar Pier cost more than Expedition Everest. This is a company that tore down half of CommuniCore to replace it with a smaller, less functional but way more expensive building and then still proceeded with the demolition to save face even though the expensive new building had been cancelled.

This isn’t the result of errors and omission, or even recent escalation. It’s the continued results of a broken process, a bloated bureaucracy and a culture of indecision and distrust.

Ah, interesting. I guess my confusion comes from stories of Imagineers these days pitching ideas, telling the “big wigs” how much it will cost and then said wigs responding with “Sounds good, but do it for half that amount”, which sounds like it’s the norm.

If this is indeed the case, then maybe whoever was selling the concept was able to convince the “buyer” that the the massive budget they were approved for would be money well spent. Initial Guest reaction seems like they were successful on that front.

But if the folks building it truly weren’t optimizing their spending of the massive budget they managed to convince their bosses to approve, then it definitely makes you wonder what could have happened with a more carefully delegated one.

I dunno, maybe someone, somewhere working there gets a kick out of being able to claim that sort of thing. “Look how much we spent, it’s a new record, bask in the glory of this flex, etc.”

Or maybe I just know nothing about the inner workings of theme park finances. It does seem absurd to me that something like Everest could cost less than Pixar Pier, because the pier retheme is one of the absolute worst things they’ve done in recent history, imo. Crazy.

 

[DavidDL]

Or.. or.. *conspiracy theory hat time*.. the more they spend on attractions the more they’re able to “justify” raising prices and creating upcharges across the board?! Hah!

 

[Casper Gutman]

Disney has been over spending on attractions for years now. This isn’t something new. “Budget cuts” are not reductions in the budget, they’re cuts to keep things within the already ridiculously high budget. Remember, even adjusting for inflation, Pixar Pier cost more than Expedition Everest. This is a company that tore down half of CommuniCore to replace it with a smaller, less functional but way more expensive building and then still proceeded with the demolition to save face even though the expensive new building had been cancelled.

This isn’t the result of errors and omission, or even recent escalation. It’s the continued results of a broken process, a bloated bureaucracy and a culture of indecision and distrust.

It’s an interesting comparison to Universal, which has also changed its mind on several projects, but has generally pulled back before irreversible changes were made. Kids Zone was so close to demolition a few years ago that the construction walls were up, but Uni balked and eventually just removed the walls. One suspects that, were this Disney, they would have razed the area and just left it empty for years, walls and all.