Universal’s theme parks, long in Disney’s shadow, expand at dizzying pace

“How high is up?”

When Mr Mark Woodbury became Universal’s theme park chief in 2022, he pressed his lieutenants to answer that question. The former architect was not referring to a roller-coaster incline.

Universal’s parks had already become a surprise growth engine for NBCUniversal, but Mr Woodbury saw an even bigger opportunity to lift the business firmly out of Disney’s shadow. “How do we become the destination of choice in each of the markets that we operate in and in all of the markets that we choose to expand into?” he said in a recent interview.

Mr Woodbury, 67, is starting to unveil the answers.

This week, Universal unveiled theming for a new park in Texas aimed at families and an opening date for an attraction in Nevada focused on horror fans. Those come on top of an expansion in Los Angeles and a massive theme park development in Orlando, Florida, that will open this spring. It is considering Wicked attractions and a major park for Britain, too.

Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, has not disclosed budgets for the projects, but analysts say the Orlando project alone cost roughly US$7 billion (S$9.4 billion).

As businesses, theme parks come with numerous risks. They are vulnerable to swings in the economy. Visitor safety is a constant battle. Attractions require costly upkeep. Escalating labour costs threaten margins.

But those challenges are outweighed by the potential for added profit, Comcast has decided. “I could not be prouder of the trajectory and growth strategy,” Comcast president Mike Cavanagh said in an e-mail.

Some of the projects are designed to bring Universal-style thrills to audiences in new markets. On Feb 19, the company announced that a year-round attraction called Universal Horror Unleashed will open in Las Vegas in August, with tickets priced from US$59 to US$149. The 100,000 sq ft attraction will include four haunted houses pegged to movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Exorcist: Believer. It will also serve alcohol.

On Feb 21, Universal announced that its first Universal Kids Resort – focused on children aged three to eight and under construction near Dallas – would offer rides and play areas themed to movie franchises like Shrek, Trolls, Minions, Puss In Boots and Jurassic World. The 13ha “starter” park is expected to open in 2026.

“We’re going to roll these out across the country and the world,” Mr Woodbury said. (They’re relatively cheap; Mr Woodbury said at a 2023 conference that the first Horror Unleashed and Universal Kids Resort would cost “several hundred million” combined.)

On April 25, Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles will introduce Fan Fest Nights, an evening-hours, separately ticketed event built around Star Trek, Back To The Future and Dungeons & Dragons cosplay that runs until May 18. It represents another of Mr Woodbury’s growth strategies: Find ways to make older Universal parks work harder. Tickets start at US$74 and reach US$373 for a VIP offering.

And then comes Epic Universe, a 304ha development in Orlando that includes a theme park and three hotels. When it opens on May 22, Epic Universe will become Florida’s first major new park in a generation – and, Universal hopes, a property that will reverse a longstanding business dynamic with Walt Disney World to the south. Mr Woodbury wants families to view the Universal Orlando Resort as a week-long destination and not just a one- or two-day add-on to a Disney vacation.

“We want people to think of us first,” he said. The Universal Orlando Resort currently includes two theme parks (Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure), a shopping and dining district, and a water park called Volcano Bay.

The park will attract roughly 10 million visitors in its first full year of operation, according to MoffettNathanson.

So far, Epic Universe tickets for the general public have been sold only as multi-day packages; the least expensive option for non-Floridians is US$352 to US$521, with the cost fluctuating based on the calendar, and provides one-day entry to Epic Universe and two days at the older parks.

Disney has watched Universal’s insurgency with a clenched jaw. In 2014, when the Universal parks broadened their focus to families with young children – Disney turf – Mr Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive, questioned whether Comcast was serious about the theme park business.

“I think the jury is still out to see just how much they’re willing to invest and what kind of creativity they have to invest in,” Mr Iger said at the time.

In the years that followed, Comcast spent billions to open a park in China, expand in Japan and add attractions in Florida.

More recently, Disney has dismissed the threat of greater competition from Universal in Florida, contending that a rising tide lifts all boats. “The Universal guys will gain a little bit of share, but we’ll see more category growth than we see share loss,” Disney’s chief financial officer Hugh Johnston said at a December conference. “Net-net, it sort of works out okay.”

MoffettNathanson estimated that Epic Universe would siphon one million visitors from Disney World from mid-2025 to the end of 2026.

In 2023, the most recent year for which attendance numbers were available, Universal parks attracted about 61 million visitors worldwide, a 70 per cent increase from a decade earlier. (Disney parks had 142 million, up 7 per cent.)

Universal’s momentum has come, in part, from closer collaboration with a corporate sibling, Universal Pictures.

In 2023, Universal Studios Hollywood opened a major Mario Bros attraction in lockstep with the release of The Super Mario Bros Movie by Universal Pictures. Epic Universe will open in May with rides themed to the How To Train Your Dragon franchise. Universal Pictures will release a big-budget How To Train Your Dragon reboot in June.

NBCUniversal Entertainment and Studios chairwoman Donna Langley said: “We’ve cultivated a creative and commercial shorthand across our teams, and that ease and comfort with one another allows us to pull levers across the company to amplify our respective strategies.”

Mr Woodbury has still-secret plans for significant attractions themed to Wicked, another Universal movie. “When I saw it, my first reaction was, ‘This is a theme park waiting to happen’,” he said. NYTIMES