Wicker-Man, The Smiler, Nemesis, Oblivion have become IPs known even by non enthusiasts - they’re not required unless it’s a full immersive world of Disney or Universal proportions.
IP's I would argue aren't required for universal or disney
I dis-agree. At Disneyland the "Star Wars" area is quite separate from the rest of the park but with a seamless transition. This is needed to create the immersiveness they have created, and the attention to detail blew me away. If you weren't interested in Swar Wars you'd never see it. Universal did the same thing with Harry Potter (better done in Florida than California IMHO), especially with the train. But as others have said, IP is expensive if you don't own it
continuing on, I disagree, you could easily have a similar themed area to star wars, a different planet with their own life forms, etc and it could easily work as well, look at eftling, phantasia etc.
IMO IP is a very cheap way of getting people in the door for a few years, but once that IP dies it will loose interest and the company will have to reinvest in retheming it, for merlin that re theming probably isn't too much, but for Disney and universal it could be a huge amount.
the problem is with IP the ride, theming and story has to be good enough to stand without people knowing any background, universal did this very well for harry potter, the entire land feels magical, and you don't need to know much to be able to enjoy the rides. but Disney has, in recent years fumbled this par IMO, you used to have splash mountain, and more IP based rides that lived long past their (problematic) IP and were still great lands, but Disney (apart from some areas like avatar) are relying on you going "oh look something from the movie" not making a magical land that stands by its self. you also see this with that fast and furious ride, it was a bad ride and they hoped the fast and furious name would make it work
