• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Would the theme park industry be different if Disney had gotten the Harry Potter franchise?

Matt N

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
Hi guys. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando is quite arguably one of the most influential and successful theme park investments of all-time; prior to COVID, attendance at Universal Orlando had practically doubled compared to the pre-Potter days, and Universal felt like WWOHP was such a resounding success that they’ve transplanted it to 3 further Universal resorts. The other thing that WWOHP did was it stimulated Disney to compete; they now had a very strong competitor within the Orlando theme park market, and Universal’s product was quite unlike anything Disney offered in 2010; WWOHP was arguably the first land on Earth to really immerse guests into a familiar movie environment in quite such an enveloping way, and Disney had to compete with their own efforts in this area to keep up. Whether you consider it the best land of this type is down to personal opinion, but I’d certainly argue that when it opened, the Wizarding World was well and truly a game-changer for the Orlando theme park market, quite possibly the worldwide theme park market as a whole.


But it is a little-known fact that Harry Potter was very nearly snatched by Disney; a Harry Potter land was planned for the Magic Kingdom in the early 2000s, as a subsection of Fantasyland. The land would have been less extensive than Universal’s, but would have contained a wand-themed interactive dark ride, as well as a couple of shops. For more info, here’s a Yesterworld video about it, as well as Disney’s lesser-known history with the Harry Potter franchise:




So my question to you today is; do you feel that the theme park industry would be different had JK Rowling accepted Disney’s original idea for a Harry Potter land in the Magic Kingdom as opposed to going with Universal and concocting the land(s) we have today?


Personally, I think things would have been very different had Disney snagged the Harry Potter IP, at very least for the Orlando market.


This might not be too well known, but after I read a book on Universal Orlando’s history, I discovered that the Universal Orlando Resort was actually in pretty dire financial straits prior to Potter being built. Numerous factors, such as the tourism recession following 9/11 and the failure of IOA to raise attendance in the way originally hoped, amongst others, had led to the Resort really struggling financially, and having a lot of debt to deal with. I think it’s easy to massively underestimate the extent to which Harry Potter saved the Universal Orlando Resort, and as such, I certainly think things would have turned out pretty differently had UOR not received the Potter IP, or if WWOHP had been a flop.


For starters, I don’t think we would have a two-horse race between Universal and Disney like we do now. OK, two-horse race might be going a bit far, as Universal still has a fair way to go to match Disney’s attendance figures, but the two are certainly not poles apart by any means.


However, if we look at the 2009 attendance figures for the two Universal Orlando theme parks compared to the 2019 attendance figures, they’ve certainly come a long way; in 2009, Universal Studios Florida received 5,530,000 visitors, while Islands of Adventure received 4,627,000 visitors. To put things into perspective; they were nowhere near even the least visited WDW park (Animal Kingdom, with 9,590,000 visitors), both parks achieved less visitors than even SeaWorld Orlando was getting (SWO got 5,800,000 visitors in 2009), and IOA only had around 500,000 more guests than Busch Gardens Tampa (BGT got 4,100,000 visitors in 2009). Here’s the TEA report I’m referencing: https://www.teaconnect.org/images/files/TEA_24_693197_140617.pdf


By comparison, in 2019, Universal Studios Florida received 10,922,000 visitors (representing a 97.5% attendance increase since 2009), and Islands of Adventure received 10,375,000 visitors (representing a 124.2% attendance increase since 2009). While they were still both below the least visited WDW park (Hollywood Studios, which got 11,483,000 visitors), the gap has narrowed significantly, with USF being only around 500,000 visitors off and IOA being just over 1 million visitors off. That might still sound a lot, but when compared with the 4-5 million off the parks were in 2009 (especially considering that Disney’s lowest figure was lower to begin with in 2009), that is an absolutely cataclysmic attendance increase, and I would put much of it down to Harry Potter’s success. (TEA report from 2019: https://blooloop.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/tea-report-2019.pdf)


As such, had Disney built Harry Potter, I think Universal might still be stuck in the same place they were in in 2009, and I’m not sure that Harry Potter’s introduction to the theme park industry would have been greeted with quite the same fanfare. Unlike Universal, Disney were already a big player to begin with by this point, and had far less riding on the investment. The land planned by Disney was also far smaller in scale, and I’m not sure it would have generated the same interest as Universal’s product did. I’m not even sure whether the grand-scale immersive land trend would have caught on in the way it did, at least among Disney & Universal, had this proposal gone ahead. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it would have been a great land, but it doesn’t leap off the page at you in quite the same way as Universal’s land does, in my opinion; rightly or wrongly, it would ultimately have been a much smaller-scale attraction.

I dare say that Disney may also have not invested to quite the same degree in the years following Potter had they gotten it instead of Universal, or at least not as quickly. They would not have had the same degree of mounting competition that they did with Universal building WWOHP, so would inevitably have felt less pressure to green-light astronomically expensive projects like Pandora and Galaxy’s Edge, and to build them relatively quickly (by Disney standards). I think they may well also have invested in different things, perhaps individual attractions as opposed to full-on themed lands.

But what are your thoughts? Do you agree with me, or do you think I’m talking utter rubbish, and that things would likely have worked out in the same way regardless of which theme park company ended up getting their hands on the Potter franchise?
 
I remember back in the 2001-2005 period, there were very strong rumours that Alton Towers would be getting the Harry Potter franchise.

Clearly JK Rowling held out and got way more money from Universal the The Tussauds Group would ever have given her.
 
I remember back in the 2001-2005 period, there were very strong rumours that Alton Towers would be getting the Harry Potter franchise.

Clearly JK Rowling held out and got way more money from Universal the The Tussauds Group would ever have given her.
Really? I wonder what Alton Towers’ take on the Potter franchise would have been like… even though there was no official confirmation that Tussauds ever cooperated with WB/Rowling (unlike with Disney, where it was known that the two parties worked together quite closely until around 2004), it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if the idea was considered, and it’s still interesting to wonder what Towers might have done with the Potter IP had they gotten it.

If nothing else, Boris Johnson would certainly have been much happier had Towers gotten Harry Potter as opposed to Universal, anyway: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/jun/07/boris-johnson-harry-potter-jk-rowling-london

Admittedly, Alton Towers isn’t London like Boris wanted, but it’s still British, and had Tussauds transplanted the IP to Thorpe or Chessington, that would have been very close to London indeed!
 
But if Merlin had got the rights to Potter they could've built an unique area and ride in each of their UK parks.

I mean imagine if Alton Towers built a dark forest area with an Intamin coaster with a drop track and backwards section...

Maybe Thorpe could've built an actor driven ride based around getting the train to Hogwarts...

I'd imagine Chessington they'd have just re themed Hocus Pocus Hall to Room on the Quidditch broom
 
Harry Potter has without a doubt been the best thing to happen to Universal parks possibly ever. It's a timeless franchise which is like printing money for them.

This in turn has made Disney step their game up massively too. A brilliant thing for us enthusiasts. As long as these two continue to fight it out the better it will be for us.

Not sure how I'd feel about Merlin owning the rights to HP. I'm sure they could have come up with some cool stuff but lets be honest it wouldn't have been on the scale of what we see in Universal parks would it?

If the London Resort ever does get built (which I don't think it will) they'd be wise to try and latch onto a globally loved franchise / IP that will never go out of date. These properties alone can keep a theme park profitable.
 
Harry Potter has without a doubt been the best thing to happen to Universal parks possibly ever. It's a timeless franchise which is like printing money for them.

This in turn has made Disney step their game up massively too. A brilliant thing for us enthusiasts. As long as these two continue to fight it out the better it will be for us.

Not sure how I'd feel about Merlin owning the rights to HP. I'm sure they could have come up with some cool stuff but lets be honest it wouldn't have been on the scale of what we see in Universal parks would it?

If the London Resort ever does get built (which I don't think it will) they'd be wise to try and latch onto a globally loved franchise / IP that will never go out of date. These properties alone can keep a theme park profitable.
To me, Harry Potter feels like the kind of thing that Merlin would have made into a transplantable midway attraction as opposed to put into a theme park had they gained the rights. I don’t know why, but HP feels like it might have been well suited to become a midway concept.

Out of interest @Benjsh, how do you think things may have turned out had Disney gained the rights to Potter like they’d originally tried to?
 
To me, Harry Potter feels like the kind of thing that Merlin would have made into a transplantable midway attraction as opposed to put into a theme park had they gained the rights. I don’t know why, but HP feels like it might have been well suited to become a midway concept.

Out of interest @Benjsh, how do you think things may have turned out had Disney gained the rights to Potter like they’d originally tried to?

HP is too popular to be a midway.

I'm sure Disney would have done an equally brilliant job with it too. However Disney has more than enough IP's, especially now they have Marvel and Star Wars, so I'm glad they don't have HP too.
 
Top