AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Universal's Epic Universe opens next month in Orlando, the area's first major theme park in 26 years. It took an estimated $7 billion and 8 years to build, and with it, Universal - which, we should note, is a financial supporter of NPR - hopes to become a more formidable competitor to the dominant player in town, Disney. Brooks Barnes is a reporter for The New York Times, where he's covered Universal's latest big play in the theme park industry. Welcome to the program.
BROOKS BARNES: Hi.
RASCOE: So why is Universal betting big on a new theme park?
BARNES: Universal, since 1990, when they came into Orlando, has been in the shadow of Disney. They've been lucky to get sort of spillover. You go to Disney, maybe you go to Universal for a day out of, you know, your week-long trip if you're a family that loves theme parks. Universal wants to flip that relationship completely. They want families to primarily visit them and then go to Disney for, you know, one or two days. That probably isn't going to happen, but that's the goal.
RASCOE: Well, so you say it's probably not going to happen. But can this new park, if not unseat Disney, as is the goal - can it at least make Disney nervous?
BARNES: Yes, it can absolutely make Disney nervous, and it is. When you talk to Disney, they tend to look at Universal very dismissively, to be candid. But Universal - they're watching Universal very carefully with Epic, in part because the initial responses have been pretty amazing, and I think that has really gotten Disney's attention. It's certainly gotten the attention of Wall Street, which is paying attention to the dynamic and whether Disney loses visitors to Universal.
RASCOE: Well, let's get into what's in the park and what you saw. Like, what are some of the Epic Universe's big draws?
BARNES: There are five worlds, if you will - lands. And each one of them is just 100% immersive into whatever theme it's talking about. There's one about "Super Mario Bros." There's one about Universal monsters - Frankenstein, Dracula. "Harry Potter" gets a land and "How To Train Your Dragon."
RASCOE: And so when you say immersive, like, what do you mean? Like, what - is it just that everything is, like - you know, if you're in Super Mario land, there are a bunch of pipes and mushrooms, or is it, like...
BARNES: (Laughter).
RASCOE: ...What is it that makes it so immersive?
BARNES: Yes, there are pipes and mushrooms and piranha plants and coins that are spinning. But the way that it's built, you really can't see out of the area where you are. It's like you're inside a game completely. And because it's built from the ground up, you know, using all the technology they have now, it's very interactive. So in that Super Nintendo world, for example, you can download the Universal app and then compete with games throughout the land and then also have that score continue onto the ride, and you can compete against your family, other strangers, people in other Universal parks. And that's something that, you know, younger theme park goers really want.
RASCOE: So as you said, you visited the park for its soft opening and spent a couple of days there.
BARNES: Yeah.
RASCOE: What's your verdict?
BARNES: I've been doing this a long time, and I was pretty blown away by the care and thought that Universal has put in this. Disney often, because it's so big, gets all the attention, you know, for advancements on ride systems or, you know, theming of certain products. But Universal, in recent years, has really taken a lot of the lead there. Some of these rides, they use ride systems that Universal has developed and patented and that we really haven't seen before.
RASCOE: So just how important are theme parks for these giant corporations with tons of IP, like, you know, like Comcast and Disney? How important are they to the bottom line?
BARNES: Theme parks are getting so much attention from investors and these companies because they're the part that's the most stable in recent years and the part that's growing the most. And that's why we're seeing, you know, billions and billions of dollars being poured into these properties. The challenge, of course, is that you don't really know what kind of market you'll launch into. Universal is now sort of opening this massively expensive park into a very unstable economy. You know, will people worried about rising costs cutback on vacations? Maybe.
RASCOE: That's Brooks Barnes of The New York Times. Thank you so much for being with us.
BARNES: Absolutely.
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