Wednesday was a busy day in the theme park business, as news was released on theme park attractions based on a number of geek properties. The biggest news was from the UK, where Kuwait-backed company London Resort Company Holdings has signed deals with BBC Worldwide and Paramount for a theme park in Kent, according to the Guardian. The deal with BBC Worldwide has not been reduced to specific properties and attractions, according to the report, but gives LRCH access to Doctor Who, Sherlock, and other key BBC properties.
The new park is expected to cost £2 billion (over $3 billion), and open for Easter 2020.
LRCH also has an agreement with Paramount Pictures for theme park attractions based on its properties, including Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, and others.
Closer to home, Disney CEO Bob Iger has revealed that the new Star Wars attractions for its parks will be based on the new movies made under the Disney regime, not the first six, according to Variety. There are already attractions based on the earlier films at the parks.
Iger had previously revealed that Disney was planning to expand the Star Wars presence in its parks (see "Disney Boosting 'Star Wars' in Parks"), but he now explained that he slowed the Imagineers’ development work on the new attractions until Star Wars: The Force Awakens was largely made, and Star Wars 8 and some of the standalone films were planned. Details on the new attractions will be revealed in 2015.
Iger gave a blunt explanation for why Disney is bringing Star Wars into its parks. "Why not? We bought the thing. We can do that now."
Iger’s comments were made at Variety’s Dealmaker’s Breakfast.
From BBC, Paramount, Disney
Posted by ICv2 on December 11, 2014 @ 2:13 am CT