Lord of the Rings: Return of the Rumor

[Disneyhead'71]

Universal Orlando Is Quietly Working on A "Lord of The Rings" Land? - Theme Park University

You may have heard rumors of “Lord of The Rings” coming to Universal Orlando for literally decades now. For one reason or another, the trigger was never pulled to actually build a land or an attraction based on the popular film franchise and book series. However, it seems that Universal is once...

themeparkuniversity.com

 

[DryerLintFan]

Well that would definitely compete with SW Land..... Plus it would be cheap. For the attractions, guests will just wander around aimlessly for three hours for a full immersion with the movies

 

[Disneyhead'71]

Well that would definitely compete with SW Land..... Plus it would be cheap. For the attractions, guests will just wander around aimlessly for three hours for a full immersion with the movies

Walking: The Ride!

 

[Master Yoda]

Walking: The Ride!

 

[Minthorne]

And here I though Disney would be adding this in Epcot as the New Zealand pavilion...

 

[some other guy]

And here I though Disney would be adding this in Epcot as the New Zealand pavilion...

nope
Dead Alive, however...

 

[BubbaQuest]

So a whole article based on "we think Universal very quietly acquired the theme park rights for Lord of the Rings several years ago" based on a older Disney&More post?

As far as I know, the only changes in recent years to the Tolkien estate is that Warner Bros didn't breach it's copyright contract by licensing video games (2017) and Amazon paid a lot of money for TV show rights (2017). It's possible some other copyright contacts were signed at the time, but I'm pretty sure that would have been announced in some financial news reports somewhere.

 

[Hakunamatata]

I could be wrong but I dont think Uni would have bought theme park rights and sat on them.

 

[Stripes]

I could be wrong but I dont think Uni would have bought theme park rights and sat on them.

Exactly, and the Tolkien Estate/Warner Bros wouldn't have signed over the rights without immediate plans and financial rewards. Further with the controlling nature of Warner Bros/Tolkien Estate how can anyone believe that Universal Creative outsourced a large portion of the creative development to PDF?

What a bunch of clickbait nonsense.

 

[JT3000]

We're doing this again?

 

[Quinnmac000]

Exactly, and the Tolkien Estate/Warner Bros wouldn't have signed over the rights without immediate plans and financial rewards. Further with the controlling nature of Warner Bros/Tolkien Estate how can anyone believe that Universal Creative outsourced a large portion of the creative development to PDF?

What a bunch of clickbait nonsense.

Umm you do realize people were saying Nintendo was coming to Universal 2 years prior to Nintendo announcing it before Universal wanted them to.

So Universal having the rights isn't unprecedented and additionally one of the great things about Tolkien rights is since it for a theme park Universal doesn't have to include WB unless they want to use the movie version of locations otherwise they can totally ice them out.

Additionally if you know anything about this threads OP, he also heard this rumour way before this article came out and he is a Universal insider.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

I could be wrong but I dont think Uni would have bought theme park rights and sat on them.

Just because we don't see shovels in the ground doesn't mean that are sitting on the rights. The actual design/R&D phase doesn't start until after the deal is inked. With Avatar the deal was signed in 2011 but we didn't see a hint of construction until 3 years later. With Nintendo it was over 2 years. It was 4 years with SW:GE.

Exactly, and the Tolkien Estate/Warner Bros wouldn't have signed over the rights without immediate plans and financial rewards. Further with the controlling nature of Warner Bros/Tolkien Estate how can anyone believe that Universal Creative outsourced a large portion of the creative development to PDF?

What a bunch of clickbait nonsense.

I would think that the interactive elements that PDF would be consulting on would be the proverbial "icing on the cake". Not the bulk of the creative development.

With the success of PDF and Evermore along with the promise of similar elements in SW:GE, I can understand why Universal would be interested in including those types of attractions in their parks. And they are perfectly suited for an IP like LotR.

 

[MisterPenguin]

It does seem odd that Uni Orlando would go with a HtTYD or Classic Monsters land ahead of a LotR land if indeed they had the rights to it.

The suppositions of plussing the current raft ride are hilarious. Using magnets in a strong current. Attaching an overhead coaster. "Reversing polarity." Hilarious.

Also, while The Funnies island is ripe for a re-do, it's only 11 acres, that's the size of TSL (with TSMM). That's not nearly big enough for the epic landscape a LotR land would need.

 

[ToTBellHop]

It does seem odd that Uni Orlando would go with a HtTYD or Classic Monsters land ahead of a LotR land if indeed they had the rights to it.

The suppositions of plussing the current raft ride are hilarious. Using magnets in a strong current. Attaching an overhead coaster. "Reversing polarity." Hilarious.

Also, while The Funnies island is ripe for a re-do, it's only 11 acres, that's the size of TSL (with TSMM). That's not nearly big enough for the epic landscape a LotR land would need.

Exactly. This doesn’t pass the smell test. LotR doesn’t really add anything the parks don’t already have. It would make more sense for Disney to buy the rights if they really wanted a magical fantasy land.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

It does seem odd that Uni Orlando would go with a HtTYD or Classic Monsters land ahead of a LotR land if indeed they had the rights to it.

The suppositions of plussing the current raft ride are hilarious. Using magnets in a strong current. Attaching an overhead coaster. "Reversing polarity." Hilarious.

Also, while The Funnies island is ripe for a re-do, it's only 11 acres, that's the size of TSL (with TSMM). That's not nearly big enough for the epic landscape a LotR land would need.

My understanding is the deal was not finalized before they had to lock in what lands would be in the new park. And the actual design/R&D phase hadn't even started yet. Including it in EU would have delayed the park by at least 2 years.

 

[MisterPenguin]

My understanding is the deal was not finalized before they had to lock in what lands would be in the new park. And the actual design/R&D phase hadn't even started yet. Including it in EU would have delayed the park by at least 2 years.

That makes sense. But the linked article implies Uni was sitting on the rights for quite a while, which seems... unlikely. Add that to silly armchair imagineering... the credibility of the source gets squirrely.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

That makes sense. But the linked article implies Uni was sitting on the rights for quite a while, which seems... unlikely. Add that to silly armchair imagineering... the credibility of the source gets squirrely.

Yeah, the article says "several years ago", but my calculations puts it around June/July 2018, but could have been as early as Nov./Dec. 2017. So more like 18 months to 2 years. And as I said, the design/R&D phase can look a lot like "sitting on the rights".

As far as the "silly armchair engineering", my guess is they got info on about 10% of the concept and extrapolated from there. Like what was described to me as an indoor Iron Man flying coaster turned out to be...

All that said, yesterday I tried to get confirmation from one of my friends. He declined to comment adding that Universal Creative has really cracked down on "leakers" and have put up "firewalls" to control how info is shared within the department.

 

[BubbaQuest]

That makes sense. But the linked article implies Uni was sitting on the rights for quite a while, which seems... unlikely. Add that to silly armchair imagineering... the credibility of the source gets squirrely.

Ya, I can't imagine Comcast would shell out $200-300 million in licensing fees and then not do anything with them. If Uni has the rights, I'm sure we would already see Hobbit t-shirts, Hobbit beer, and second breakfast in the parks. That's a huge expense to hide without any profit associated with it.

I'm not sure why this rumor pops up every 2 years. Makes me wonder if there is a time window when the Tolkien estate allows new proposals. Someone seems some new Uni concept artwork for a proposal and suddenly the rumors become true again.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

Ya, I can't imagine Comcast would shell out $200-300 million in licensing fees and then not do anything with them. If Uni has the rights, I'm sure we would already see Hobbit t-shirts, Hobbit beer, and second breakfast in the parks. That's a huge expense to hide without any profit associated with it.

I'm not sure why this rumor pops up every 2 years. Makes me wonder if there is a time window when the Tolkien estate allows new proposals. Someone seems some new Uni concept artwork for a proposal and suddenly the rumors become true again.

With that logic, shouldn't we already be drinking Mario Sake-tinis at UOR?

 

[Magenta Panther]

If Universal does build a LOTR land, I hope to god it DOESN'T base it on any of the movies (especially the dreadful "Hobbit" flick). I hope Universal bases it on the books, and on The Hobbit in particular. I could see a Hobbit village in the park, with shops and an "inn" that serves Second Breakfast (i.e. brunch) and a Smaug's Mountain ride with a killer AA dragon. It's fun to think about...