In 2010, Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure unveiled The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, featuring a recreation of Hogsmeade Village and Hogwarts Castle; which housed the wildly popular theme park ride, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.
This summer, the long awaited expansion of Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley will be opened to the public with a brand new ride: Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. Inspired by the Gringotts heist from Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2. Escape from Gringotts puts riders on an adventure deep within the Gringotts vaults as Harry, Hermione and Ron attempt to retrieve a Horcrux.
Earlier this week, we spoke with Eric Hunt, the Universal Orlando creative producer who oversaw Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts to get an advance look at what’s coming up in the heavily anticipated ride.
CraveOnline: I don’t recall seeing the outside of Gringotts in the movies, but I do remember the Gringotts interior sequence from The Deathly Hallows Part 2. Where there any exterior shots of Gringotts in that film that you were able to draw upon in this ride?
Eric Hunt: In fact, there were some shots. I can’t recall if it was in the first or the final film, but it was very brief. There was a bit a facade that showed Gringotts bank, proper. Having said that, what we recreated is all of Gringotts exterior, which includes facades on either side of the main entrance, including – last but not least – a fire-breathing dragon that stands 60 feet tall (give or take the measurement on the wingspan) on top of a forty five foot tall building.
So, we’re really excited about showing that to our guests and it’s a very immersive experience when you walk through Diagon alley and being able to see this massive creature. And it’s the Ukrainian Ironbelly just as seen in the final film. That’s really a great piece that we’re proud to have for our guests. And I’m sure it’s going to get thousands of photos every single day.
Out of the entire eight film series, why did you choose Gringotts for the new Harry Potter ride?
Well, that’s interesting. The Gringotts experience, going down the chasms and the depths below and it’s certainly a very secure place. As told by J.K. Rowling, it’s one of those places where not everyone is welcome. But when we saw the first film, and ride through as Harry is going to his vault… and certainly with the energy it produced in the final film, we saw that this was a really good fit for a groundbreaking attraction.
To recreate that, we put our minds together and we feel that what we have to show our guests this summer is truly a spectacle and an amazing piece of technology that is going to tell the story that we feel no others can tell.
Also with the Gringotts bank is it’s a part of Diagon Alley. So, as you go down the alleyways of Diagon Alley, you’ll see Gringotts Bank in the background. So it’s a perfect fit and true to the vision that Stuart Craig, the production designer from the feature films, as told in the books as we’ve seen in the films.
The first Harry Potter ride, Harry Potter and The Forbidden Journey had an interesting blend of technologies as it told the story of the ride. Did you reuse those techniques for the Gringotts ride or is it something closer to the Spider-Man revamp at Islands of Adventure?
It’s actually influenced by what we’ve done with Harry Potter and The Forbidden Journey. We’ve added some new things, we’ve learned some new things and we’ve produced a totally unique experience. You can’t compare it to Spider-Man and you can’t compare it to Harry Potter and The Forbidden Journey. What you can do is say that it’s unique, it’s evolving, it’s groundbreaking next generation technology. We’re using a combination of both physical and audio visual effects. We’re using the next generation of 4K Digital as far as our media and our content is concerned.
We think that it’s a visceral experience, working with heat, flame, water, wind, not to mention the ride system itself. We really developed some unique things with this ride system that haven’t been done before.
Did any of the performers from the Harry Potter films come back and shoot new footage for this ride?
In fact, we have had some interaction with many of the characters from the feature film, so you’ll see a lot of the great folks from the film, with the likes Ron, Hermione, Harry, Bellatrix and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Lord Voldemort. We’re really excited to have him this time around as part of our experiences within the land
To clarify, I was asking if the original performers had reprised their roles for the ride.
I’m sorry, yes. We’re really grateful to have had part of that [ride] with them involved exclusively.
How long has this ride been in the works?
About three and a half years, from the initial idea of what we could do next because the guests keep asking “is there going to be more to this? You should do this or you should do that.”
We took a lot of the opinions and some of the thoughts in mind and thought it was a perfect fit. Afterwards, we were working with the team on Harry Potter and The Forbidden Journey. I’m happy to say that I worked on the [Hogwarts] castle as well as a senior production designer.
It was only fitting to move on and see how Warner Bros. feels about adding to this experience and making it more expansive and even more immersive journey. The ideas came about and three and a half years later, here we are upon the opening this summer.
