Some days ago, Brady Mc Donald posted a real good article about the upcoming Paramount Park which will open in Murcia, Spain, in 2015. Works should begin next year and this new theme park will be build "on a 100-acre theme park set around a central lake that will combine the themed lands of Disneyland with the movie backlots of Universal Studios"? It will include exciting attractions based on Mission Impossible, Spielberg's War of the World, Titanic, Star Trek, Sleepy Hollow, Rango, etc... and even a kind of "wizarding world"! You can read Brady article HERE and see the park's entrance artwork above and excerpts of the PFD presentation file below. Click on each to see them in larger size.
I've also embedded below a presentation video where you will see many more artwork of the future park. With the Warner Studios park and Port Aventura this new one will bring a third major theme park to Spain and the question could be: what kind of attendance impact will it have on Disneyland Paris? The first reaction could be to say that "Murcia is so far from Paris that it shouldn't be a problem". Not wrong, but as we will see it's a bit more complicated than that. Why? simply because the Paramount park will be not so far from Madrid or Barcelona and that we can count on Paramount to do a huge marketing campaign in 2015 to let anyone living in Spain that a new theme park is about to open. And what will you do if you were living in Spain? Would you spend your money to come back again at DLP or would you be excited to discover a new theme park at two-three hours from your home, built by a major Hollywood studio? You will go see the new park, of course, and this means that starting 2015 DLP should have less spaniards visiting the resort.
But there is worse. Where the Paramount park will be build - near Murcia - is an area where literally hundred of thousands of people from all over europe, including germans, british, belgium, french, etc... are coming each summer as they're sure to find there a hot sun, plenty of fun, and more. Instead to do a stop at DLP on their way to Spain they might be tempted to save their money to visit the new Paramount park because you can also count on Paramount to let the rest of Europe know about their brand new park as soon as it will be open! Some might argue that this could make only 4 or 5 % less people for DLP but these 5% are vital for Disneyland Paris, and if things happen like i said it will be bad news for DLP.
However, in all this, DLP still have some luck. What i mean is that instead to build this new park in Spain Paramount could have made the choice to build it near Paris! I don't know why all these major Hollywood studios are choosing Spain - okay, the weather is sunny and much better than in Paris all year long, but in terms of attendance they will never make the same numbers that they will do if they were near Paris. I remember this Universal Studios project in the mid 90's supposed to be build near Meaux at 30km from DLP. Finally, due to DLP financial problems Universal execs changed their mind and instead did an investment in Port Aventura - only to resell their shares some years later.
So, the big luck of DLP is to don't have any major competitor at 20 miles from the resort, like Disney have in Florida. Can you imagine the hell it would be for DLP if at 20 miles from the WDS will exist a Universal Studios with a selection of Universal best rides and a Wizarding World of Harry Potter? But, at the same time, it's also a real bad luck for DLP that a Universal Studios don't exist near Paris. Why? Because if there was one it will boost DLP to develop new rides, enhance the parks, etc... A bit like what's happening at WDW right now. The Harry Potter land is such a success that DIsney had to counter attack with the upcoming Avatar land. I'm pretty sure that DLP execs are aware of this new Paramount Park and may be it will urge the WDC to give the money for a big placemaking at the WDS. Rumors, as i told you last tuesday, seems to indicate that this will be the case and we'll see what happen.
In the meantime, don't miss the Paramount Park presentation video below!
Picture and video: copyright Paramount
