My favorite proof of concept story is they pitched a Wonka land to take over the remainder of The Lost Continent. It was to be a small English village (retail) sitting in front of a huge chocolate factory. Inside the factory were 3 rides (Wonkatania, Fizzy Lifting Lab, and Glass Elevator) and a restaurant. I don't know who shot it down, Comcast or Wonka rights holder, but the concept eventually morphed in to Toothsomes.
Probably better to have the chocolate contained in Toothsome than tracking it throughout the park.......
I remember seeing this leaked a few years ago and it's a real shame we didn't get representation of multiple video game characters in a land called Super Nintendo World. But I'm holding out hope they just want to space these out so guests keep coming back (DK turned out to be real).There is a rumor that Universal Creative has a LotR "proof of concept" drawn up for the large expansion pad between the hub dueling coaster and Potter. That kind of thing is used when pitching a project to higher ups in the company and rights holders to gain access to an IP. But "proof of concept" is far from what actually gets built.
Here is an image from the proof of concept that UC took to Nintendo. As you can see, it is very different from what they eventually built.
I have also heard they have an older LotR proof of concept for Toon Lagoon at IOA.
We should be glad this plan didn't go through. This would have been too little space dedicated to too many characters. You could easily just do Mario, but I think Mario & Donkey Kong is fine for now. Lest we forget, Universal already has the park rights to Pokemon as well, and I think the expansion plot just north of Nintendo would be perfect for it.
Shorter than Slink Dog…
I have no issues with that since it's a family coaster.
As long as it doesn’t have a 2-hr wait, sure.
The steaming corpse of the Lost Continent is ripe for the taking.
God, that area is such a let down with beautiful theming but no ride (anymore) and a terrible walk through show thing. and abandoned theater....mythos is good food though. I hold out hope that they will get rid of the walkthrough and maybe combine space with the abandoned theater next door for a massive new darkride like indiana jones or something
I purposely left that off assuming they’d just continue expanding Hogsmeade. But yes, that area is pointless now.
I've been hearing that they have plans drawn up for Zelda in that location ever since the Nintendo acquisition was first announced, but I'm not sure if it got put on the back burner (or cancelled) for Epic Universe, or if it was always more of a long-term project.
It was a near term project when Epic Universe was a longer term project. When Epic Universe moved up Zelda and Pokémon were dropped for the time being.
