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Disney's Magic Kingdom – A Pirate's Adventure: Treasures of the Seven Seas – Much like the Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom game inside the Magic Kingdom, this is also a game in the Adventureland area of the Magic Kingdom. The goal of this game is to do all of Captain Jack's dirty work and find different Treasures of the Seven Seas. If you win, you get to become a member of Jack's crew…probably the crewmember that wears a red shirt and says “Hey, Captain, I found an…ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH”.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy – This movie has a release date, a director, and a general idea of when filming will start. What it doesn't have is a script or any actors willing to do this project yet. Of the five main characters mentioned, one is a tree, the other is a raccoon, and the other is a female who for some reason refuses to wear shirts that connect in the middle or have been made out of anything more robust than paint. Several of our younger readers may have need of a cold shower if they accidently do an internet search for Gamora. In what is probably not a good sign, the casting directors are interested in Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey. Hopefully Jim Carrey for the voice of Rocket Raccoon and Adam Sandler to fetch coffee for the people who actually have some kind of talent.
Muppets 2 – This movie is running right along in its casting stage and has picked up a fairly strong sounding cast including Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, Ty Burrell, and just announced that Ray Liotta would be joining the cast as well. There is no mention about Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, and Gonzo, but hopefully they will get their contracts all squared away soon.
Elitch Gardens – Well, Elitch's knows how to make people happy. After rumors started to surface about Elitch's getting a new roller coaster, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they were talking about the very underwhelming X-Coaster from sister park Magic Springs. The newest rumor is that when they went to take down X-Coaster, they found that the top portion of the coaster had been welded into place (instead of only bolted). So now either Elitch's needs to figure out a way to cut apart the sections in a hurry, or the wrecking ball is the only thing that is going to fix this problem. Needless to say, Elitch's is probably not getting that sucker for this year. Maybe next year. Maybe never. Elitch's wouldn't be Elitch's if they got nice new stuff.
The Graveyard Book –Disney picked up the rights to The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (the same guy who wrote Coraline) since it is the only book to have ever won both the Newbery Award and the Carnegie medal. The original plan was for Henry Selick to do a stop motion treatment of the book in similar style to Coraline and Nightmare Before Christmas, both of which were directed by Selick…but…things change faster in Hollywood than the NHL deciding to stop messing the players around when a $2 billion TV contract was on the line. Ron Howard is now the man in charge of the production and it looks like it is going to be live action and not animated. The jury is undecided as whether this is a good thing or a really, really bad thing, as Ron Howard hasn't done really good work since the Andy Griffith Show.
California's Great America – Now hiring! So polish off those skills of cleaning toilets and asking people if they want fries with that. For those of you who have a talent, they are also doing auditions from February 4-17 for everything from show hosts, to singers, to character actors, to stage managers. Since a strong majority of dancers are hot young women, my suggestion would be to lie your way into a stage job. If you just happen to be a hot young woman, my suggestion would be to not date any of the stage hands and go to college to ensure that you are smarter than anyone you date…like it will be that difficult.
Six Flags – Three parks are going to offer a Season Dining pass. And who would really want to eat Six Flags food for an entire season? You already can guess that it doesn't work on any of the specialty food stands, booze, or make up for the lack of customer service being given by the staff. Currently Fiesta Texas, Over Texas, & St. Louis (69.99), and Magic Mountain ($99.99).
K'NEX Great Thrill Ride Build-Off – Last year I just happened to be at Cedar Point when the K'NEX thrill ride sculptures were on display in the Cedar Point Museum. Jim Koehl and I spent about 20 minutes marveling over the different rides that people had come up with. This year the contest is expanding to include Dorney Park and Valleyfair! as well as Cedar Point. Any one interest in participating this year needs to get to work right now and convince your parents to get second jobs to afford the mass amount of K-NEX you will need in order to build your 10 foot tall and 20 foot wide masterpiece.
The Twilight Series – Stephenie Meyer, while at the Sundance Film Festival was asked if there were any plans to put Twilight into an amusement park. Her reply was, “It would be so boring. Would you have to go to high school for it? That's not a vacation. Sounds awful.” From her lips to your ears…and I couldn't agree more.
The Grevin Wax Museum – This tourist attraction from Paris is planning on expanding to Quebec and featuring celebrities from Quebec. The good news is that ticket prices should be low, since a museum featuring celebrities from Quebec should be able to occupy a space slightly smaller than a decent sized closet.
Sources: Amusement Today, Screamscape, Ain't It Cool News, and whatever else I happened to read this week.
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Works in theory, but it requires you to eat Six Flags food!