Universal Orlando "Despicable Me" 3D ride is coming!

By Dewayne Bevil, Orlando Sentinel

5:06 p.m. EDT, May 19, 2011
Universal Orlando will add "Despicable Me" as a new 3-D ride and update its popular Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man attraction at its theme parks next year.

The Despicable Me ride, based on the 2010 Universal Pictures movie of the same name, will replace the Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast attraction at Universal Studios theme park. Its story line will be different from the movie's — and passengers will be turned into minions, the goggled little yellow helpers of the main character, Gru.

Mark Woodbury "It's an original story set into a whole new story," Mark Woodbury, president of Universal Creative, said Thursday. "Gru, the world's most wonderful supervillain, and his three adorable daughters are coming to Universal Orlando, and Gru has a new invention and needs some help getting it deployed, so he's going to transform the whole audience into minions."

The ride will transport guests in an eight-passenger vehicle through Gru's home, laboratory and "an entire training process to become minions," Woodbury said. That theming will extend to riders' 3-D glasses.

"As a minion, you're going to have to have minion goggles," he said.

The minions will follow folks after the ride at an "interactive dance party," Woodbury said.

The changes were made public through a webcast at a Universal Orlando soundstage Thursday morning.

"Despicable Me" grossed more than $540 million worldwide and featured the voices of Steve Carell ("The Office") as Gru and Jason Segel ("How I Met Your Mother") as Gru's youthful nemesis, Vector. Woodbury would not confirm what voices would be heard in the Universal Studios attraction.

"Suffice it to say, when you meet Gru, it will be Gru, and when you meet the girls, it will be the girls," he said.

The addition of the minion attraction is a good move, said Lance Hart, editor of Screamscape, a website that covers theme parks around the world.

He describes the film's minions as "cute yellow guys with bizarre antics who like to fight, bash and squabble with one another and who speak their own jibber-jabber language.

"You couldn't ask for a better set of characters to run rampant all over Universal Orlando," Hart said.

"Plus, it's the perfect bridge-gap for the upcoming film sequel on the way."

A sequel to "Despicable Me" is planned for 2013.

Scott Smith, an instructor in the University of Central Florida's Rosen College of Hospitality Management, said he wonders whether the "Despicable Me" characters have lasting appeal, even as much as the ones in Universal Studios' nearby Shrek attraction. It will be about two years between the time the film was in theaters and the attraction's opening.

"I think Universal made the most conservative decision out there, and it's the best option available. 'Despicable Me' was a cute little film that did well," he said.

"The Jimmy Neutron thing is just so old, and kids today don't relate to it. They had to replace it with something, and they had to replace it quick," Smith said.

Illumination Entertainment founder and "Despicable Me" producer Chris Meledandri is working closely with the Universal creative team on the attraction, he said.

"This will be perceived by all of the artists that have been working on the film as winning the Olympics," Meledandri said Thursday before the webcast.

Spinning Spider-Man anew

The alterations to the Spider-Man ride, a staple at Islands of Adventure since the park opened in 1999, will be technical: It will be reanimated in high definition. The basic story will be retained, said Thierry Coup, senior vice president of Universal Creative Studios.

"The characters will be so amazing in details. You'll be able to see the details in the flames of Hobgoblin's pumpkins; you'll be able to see electricity arcing through Electro's body, Spider-Man's glove when he's pointing at us; you'll be able to see the stitching in his glove — down to that detail."

The ride also will receive new 3-D "Spider-Vision" glasses with lenses made of dichroic filters to improve the attraction's color and clarity, Universal said.

It was time for Spider-Man to step up to the bar it set when it opened, Hart said.

Spider-Man's current downside "is that it uses film-projection technology from the '90s in a 21st-century world where digital projection in high-end theaters has become expected and fantastic image quality is available at home with Blu-ray and even Blu-ray 3-D movies," he said.

Woodbury would not say how much the changes or the installation of the "Despicable Me" ride will cost.

"We spend as much as we need to spend to get it exactly right," he said.

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