London Paramount was to be a £3.2 billion theme park resort on a 535-acre site on Swanscombe Peninsula, in North Kent. But today, developers announced that they and Paramount Licensing have discontinued the licensing agreement that would have permitted the use of Paramount Pictures IP — including Star Trek and Mission: Impossible — in the park.
Developers said that the project will go forward without Paramount, however. What's now being called the "London Resort" also has licensing agreements with Aardman Animations and the BBC, which would give it access to franchises including Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Doctor Who, and Top Gear. The developer, London Resort Company Holdings Limited, has said that it will seek addition IP partners for the resort though its CEO said "we are not looking for a new studio."
The resort is due to submit a fresh round of permit documents in November. Originally announced in 2012 and slated for opening by 2019, the project's opening date had been pushed back to 2022 even before this latest setback. In addition to the theme park, the resort is planned to include more than 4,000 hotel rooms, restaurants, and theaters.
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Brexit casualty?
Given that there is zero chance that Disney was going to license this group the rights to use Star Wars as well as Star Trek in their park, this is either spin, or the park is talking about a potential conflict with Paramount's other Top 20 IP, which is Mission: Impossible.
I suppose if the park thought it had some chance at landing the rights to James Bond from Sony (which would be the big competitive franchise to MI), then it might have a case for withdrawing from this deal to pursue that one. Or if it has some miracle deal to use Middle Earth from Warner Bros. and the Tolkien estate.
But a theme park that hopes to get 40K visitors a day - as the park has promised - absolutely has to have major IP in order to approach that number. Doctor Who, Wallace & Gromit, and Top Gear are nice IPs, but they don't come close to being big enough to move the needle that much. (And, FWIW, the BBC and Aardman licenses are no longer mentioned on the London Resort's website, as of this morning, either.)
Let's remember that Shanghai Disneyland isn't doing 40K a day, and it has the biggest theme park IP in the industry, in the biggest city in the biggest country in the world. This resort just lost its brand and its biggest IP partner (no matter who sent off whom), and still lacks government approval to proceed. Yeah, I think this project is in a bit of danger right now.
Is it doomed? No! But I think that people following this project need to adjust expectations of what can be done in the marketplace without the resort bringing some major new IP aboard. And if it isn't pursuing a studio partner, from where would the IP come?
And you know what? That's a good thing, because if it opened without the proper IPs, it'd flounder, be a disappointment, waste a lot of capital, and become a white elephant.
If you're going to do a theme park, you need a LOT of money and some great IPs. If you build it, they will come - if it's worth coming to. And this one looks like it is far from being worth coming to.
Hard Rock Park had good stable of rides but not so strong IP
The theme parks in Dubai have a collection of good IP but still not a must do attraction there yet for theme park fans to get on the next flight there.
Now London Resorts has neither at the moment. I really don't see this getting off the ground at all currently.
Whilst Brexit has certainly hurt the economy, and threatens more damage, I don't think thats what made Paramount pull out. Attendance and financial viability is the operators job, Paramount's job is to sit back and cash the licensing cheque.
The management of Hard Rock Park set unrealistic goals in order to secure funds and the backing of the Hard Rock brand, but when investors eventually saw that those goals were nearly impossible to achieve (along with the great recession), they cut their losses by selling their stake in the park, leaving operators no choice but to look for someone to take the albatross off their neck. This park was on course to meet the same fate, and perhaps the loss of this IP will prevent investors and operators from making the same mistake.
Unless you're Disney, I think in order to get a resort-style theme park off the ground, you have to start small. Trying to build a full-day experience right off the bat is an impossible task. Groups trying to build parks should start with a single land with one or two major attractions with a handful of smaller attractions. They should then price their park accordingly (perhaps 2-3 times the cost of a regular movie ticket in the area) to build a solid base of fans. As the cash flow starts trending up, then operators can go out to seek further investment partners to expand the park one land at a time until the park achieves a full-day experience. It's really how most businesses are started, yet those looking to open theme parks get these grandiose ideas and try to bite off far more than they can chew and go hundreds of millions of dollars into debt, compounding any mistakes that are inevitable in a newly constructed park. The Middle East parks are failing because they're trying to be full-day (or even multi-day) experiences, and the money that's been invested is a weight that will hang over any future expansion plans. Theme parks should be operated like any other business, and one day, a smart investment and operational group will come together and put together a theme park resort the right way that one day will rival what Disney has taken 60+ years to perfect.
I'd love to see them do an entirely James Bond themed park, there's plenty of material and so much inspiration you could use for rides; different transport, locations etc. I just question how much draw it would have.
I can see it now: Split the park into 6/7 locations; London, Moscow, Jamaica, Iceland(arguably from the worst Bond film but you can't argue with building a replica ice palace) etc. You've got various movie chase scenes for themed rollercoasters/simulators. A wide ranging assortment of characters roaming the park. Plenty of tat(sorry, souvenir) potential with Q's gadgets, hell with 3d printing you could allow guests to customise/design their own. However, I can't see it having mass appeal or a theme park being built around one particular film franchise.
The real issue with a UK theme park is the transport capabilities and the fact that for this location you have to go round or head towards the dreaded M25(think California freeways during rush hour, we have that pretty much around the clock. No joke, during the day you have traffic and at night you have less traffic but roadworks!). Unfortunately there is an obsession with building everything near London regardless of suitability.
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