From ‘The Wizarding World’ to ‘How to Train Your Dragon’: Behind Universal Epic Universe’s Attractions

“I don’t think that there is anything quite comparable,” says Anisha Vyas, assistant director of projects, Universal Creative, while discussing the latest Wizarding World attraction at the soon-to-open Universal Epic Universe. “It’s all so cohesive, yet different than anything we’ve done before.”

Vyas was speaking to the ride experience for Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry, a new immersive attraction for Universal Orlando Resort. But she just as easily could have been talking about the entirety of the new park, situated on a 750-acre site and featuring five worlds — The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic, How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk, Dark Universe, Super Nintendo World, and Celestial Park. All will feature notable innovations and advancements for the theme park industry, from architecture to attraction tech to hospitality. 

“To put it in perspective, this is pretty much a small city when you have portions that are open just for the public and portions that are not,” says Gabriela Lander, director of architecture and engineering design at Universal Creative. “There are over 100 venues. I can tell you there are small towns that don’t have 100 houses.”

The immersive and innovative experience is made possible by a broad, multidisciplinary team, from engineers and architects to composers and costume designers. “While the scale of what we’re building is bigger than we’ve ever done before, the entire project’s scope is also so much larger, and so our teams are much bigger to support that,” says Vyas. At Universal Creative, those teams are made up of and led by many women, something Kim Gritzer, creative director at Universal Creative, says “is rare in the industry.” 

“In my whole career, this is the highest number of female leaders that we’ve had across technical, creative, construction, and architecture,” notes Vyas. Adds Katy Pacitti, an industry veteran and assistant director, executive producer for Isle of Berk, “I’ve seen the progression. For years, in meetings, I’d be the only woman at the table.” 

For some in Universal Creative, like Maggie Baker, senior manager of costume and wardrobe design, their Epic team is majority-women. Others say they feature women within the larger mix, like Gina Scheraldi, show director for Celestial Park, who has gotten to work on the larger Epic project with her mentor. 

“On this, we’ve had an incredible support system made up of women and really everybody working towards making sure that Victoria [Frankenstein] was the best original character we could deliver,” says Frances Franceschi, production designer on the Dark Universe’s Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment. “The way everybody got behind that narrative, it feels really empowering.” 

“It’s a safe environment for me to be authentic, to be myself, to express who I am, and how I am a woman — a Latina, a mother of two, a wife, a daughter,” says Lander. “It’s not just that I have support, but I have the space to grow and involve who I am.”

“I think it shows, personally, with a better product,” adds Pacitti of Universal Creative’s inclusive team. “And I love mentoring the younger women, making sure they find their voices.”

Ten women from the Universal Creative team who helped shape Epic Universe tease new details about how they built aspects of four worlds for the newest theme park in the Universal Destinations & Experiences portfolio. 

“Out of the four [major IP] worlds, we’re the largest,” Pacitti tells The Hollywood Reporter. “If you take away the big rides, you can fit two of the other worlds in this one. Part of that is because you have two bodies of water.”

Based on DreamWorks Animation’s billion-dollar franchise, Isle of Berk’s architecture from the mountain to cliffs and buildings offers parkgoers something that “feels lived in, active and kinetic,” says Pacitti. A collaborative effort between Universal Creative and the studio, Isle of Berk not only recreates but expands the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, “an animated world that doesn’t need anything real” like infrastructure that can sustain 5,000 guests an hour or hurricane force winds.

The process has involved infusing things both additive and familiar. “We use so much of [the film’s] amazing soundtrack music, but we have things that are new,” says Camille Coladonato, the senior media producer responsible for Isle of Berk and Celestial Park. “What would be more authentic and immersive than a Viking band?” It also meant “expanding some of the stuff that DreamWorks maybe designed, and we don’t see,” says Pacitti. That includes one element inspired by a drawing featuring one of the franchise’s leading women, Astrid.  

“There are no shops in Berk, but we happen to have all of DreamWorks’ assets. Our How to Treat Your Dragon sweet shop was not really seen in the films, but it’s something that DreamWorks developed, so we’re taking that,” says Pacitti. “We have these benches [based on] blue sky drawings for the third film. There was this tiny, tiny, low-res [image] of Astrid sitting on a bench that was carved to look like a Natter [Dragon]. We took that and said let’s just make them, so we have not only the Natter, we have a Gronkle, a sheep.”

The appearance of dragons goes beyond benches, with Pacitti teasing static creatures, dragon tails that swing, Scuttleclaw, and the sheep as simple animated figures. There’s also the “massive and beautiful” head of Valka’s Stormcutter Cloudjumper in his home, a full-scale Grump in the Forge who breathes fire, and a breathing Snow Wraith. Since the world has started internal dry-runs, character appearances for Toothless and his babies, the Night Lights, have been popular. There are also the large flying dragon drones. 

“[The Night Lights] aren’t pets, and they aren’t circus animals, so we want to make sure they seem very organic and natural. We’ve set it up to be a little more fun and playful, really capitalizing on the fact that they are babies that they, from what we’ve seen of them in How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming and the end of the third film, are little bit mischievous,” says Pacitti. “With the drones, it’s more about if you live in a place with dragons, they just exist, so it’s not a show thing. It’s more of I’m in Berk, so of course a dragon is flying overhead.” 

Berk is as much about training and flying dragons as it is about a sea-faring people in an 8th Century Viking village. It’s a place where you have to “work for your fun,” says Pacitti, with experiences like the Viking Training camp, a play area for children as little as toddlers. There’s also Hiccup’s Wing Gliders among the world’s six attractions, a coaster that originally circumnavigated the world but now cuts through it. “When you’re standing there and the coaster comes through and goes underneath the bridge, it just activates the world,” says Pacitti. “When it skims the lagoon, the water sprays, and you go through the fog, it’s really quite dynamic.”

Epic guests can also experience the lagoon via the quick-serve Spitfire Grill, “so that you can sit above the water’s edge and look at all of the cacophony going on with Fire Drills.” Like all the main attractions, the water-based competition is themed after the franchise’s young characters, specifically Rough Nut and Tough Nut. “It’s not really about learning how to put out fires, but how to torment the other team,” says Pacitti. “We’ve jammed so much into a small space. Everything is big, rough-hewn, hand-carved looking, and very colorful. We have representations of the dragons, and their wings move. We have little Vikings that are on spinning things that toss water at you. You get very wet on this ride.”

For the women who helped put together the Dark Universe’s biggest attraction, crafting the character at its center was as involved as shaping its the ride’s technical achievements. At one point during the design process, as female members of the design team were discussing the character’s wardrobe, they paused to ask themselves how they would want their hair styled if they were a brilliant scientist carrying out dark experiments. “Immediately, all the women in the room dove in and started adjusting her hair and looking at each other for reference in that exact moment, even pulling hair clips and bobby pins out of their own hair to help develop her hair style, recalls Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment’s production designer.

“We’re going to bring to life one of the first original lead female characters with this iconic [Classic Monsters] IP. That feels surreal,” says Franceschi. “And it feels good to know women had a hand in developing every aspect of Victoria from her creative conception to the physical delivery of the final character.” Created for the Dark Universe’s dark ride, Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment, Dr. Victoria Frankenstein — like much of the world — is based on a philosophy of making what’s old new. A descendent of Victor Frankenstein, Victoria attempts to capture and experiment on some of horror’s most famous creatures. 

Pulling from the original Henry Frankenstein lore, alongside monster books and movies, parkgoers will traverse the manor, where they’ll be able to see individual creatures — a mix of moving, static, image, and media-based — alongside her logbooks and chalkboards full of research in the queue. Once in the catacombs, riders will board Victoria’s navigation system, an old contraption that she has made new with the help of Igor. 

The ride system, says Franceschi, is one parkgoers are mostly familiar with, but it’s been upgraded along with the themed ride vehicles. “Our movement is very dynamic. You’re at a constant speed, but you would not realize that because of how the [attraction] rotates,” the production designer explains. 

While the system may be more recognizable, the ride’s central attraction is ultimately its characters, the life-size animatronic monsters, which push boundaries in the medium. “It’s one thing from a creative perspective to say, ‘I want people to see Frankenstein walk.’ It’s another thing to execute and deliver that,” Franceschi notes. “And historically, animatronics are quite large because of their robotic functions and motors. But we have an impressive scale. We did not need them all to be nine feet tall. So some are five, four, seven feet. But each monster is its own unique character, so we developed technology that worked for the size of that monster. ”

“People will definitely get to see their favorites,” teased Baker, who worked on evolving the looks of the monsters in the ride and the larger world beyond their 1930s styles. “And they are more modern, a little bit more fashion forward.” 

The way guests interact with characters and the ride environment based on special effects and where in the vehicle they sit will also heavily shape their attraction experience. “If we have one of our figures that is around fire, we want to make sure that you feel the heat. We have a figure that has an explosion around him, and we want you to feel that. It’s about how the environment and our monsters react to where our guests are in the vehicle and how close they get,” the production designer says. “The ride’s show environments are so expansive and immersive that every seat in the vehicle will naturally give guests a slightly different perspective of the experience.”

As a dark ride, lighting throughout the attraction — and the world — will help electrify the experience. Inside, the ride experience will see lighting “as its own character,” adding suspense and creating dramatic character and environmental reveals. Outside, effects will work as a visual cue that Dr. Victoria is conducting experiments within the Frankenstein Manor as world lighting flickers, pulsates, and eventually accumulates at the structure’s top spire. 

Upon leaving the attraction, guests have access to character meet-and-greets, the Curse of the Werewolf coaster, and multiple monster and macabre-themed dining options. The Burning Blade Tavern — which will feature an actual flaming windmill — shares a lycan theme with the ride, while Das Stakehaus, the world’s vampire-themed restaurant, will be among its most immersive, down to its cutlery.

“When I say we’re immersing you, it’s from the cutlery and plateware to the napkins,” says Sueann Cotanche, vice president of food and beverage at Epic Universe. The cutlery in our universe is black, the plateware is very dark and very worn, and the napkins are not your typical white. They’re red.”  

Created in collaboration with Warner Bros. and The Blair Partnership, Universal Epic Universe’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter extension, Ministry of Magic, will deliver an entirely new experience with Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry, an attraction with Dolores Umbridge and her former house-elf Higgledy at its center. Actress Imelda Staunton reprised her role for the ride more than a decade after the franchise’s end, recording her performance at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden. 

“In the costuming, we had a designer [from] the film, so when he did the fitting with her, she just immediately [transformed],” recalls Gritzer of the process. “As we were filming, we gave her the dialog and we rehearsed, but there were things that she did add, and she was very involved in the staging of things.” 

A return for characters like Ron, Harry, and Hermoine that may rely on very advanced visual effects within the attraction, Battle at the Ministry will debut Higgledy, first as a “beautiful” animated figure in an intimate moment in Umbridge’s office during the ride queue experience, says Gritzer. She will then appear as part of the adventure multiple times, in “many different forms and many different ways, helping us and Harry, Ron, and Hermione bring Umbridge to justice,” says Vyas. “We’ve done a beautiful job of bringing to life every character in totally different ways.”

The larger experience of the built-to-scale queue will transport parkgoers from the world’s 1920s Parisian theme — where a magical beasts show Le Cirque Arcanus and Butterbeer crêpes are served up — to the 1990s and the expansive Ministry of Magic by way of the Métro-Floo system. 

“There are fireplaces in a line, and you are sent through the Floo and experience a burst — we’ll just call it green smoke for now — then you step through a bit of a tunnel, have that experience again, and you are transported to the Ministry,” says Vyas. “There are a lot of different spaces and easter eggs, and a lot of really fun in your face gags that happen in that queue.” 

The queue will also allow guests to explore aspects of the Ministry of Magic that have may or may not have appeared on screen, like the Magical Archives, in a way that’s more aesthetically sophisticated than the more rustic Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, and Hogwarts Castle attractions, says Gritzer. “Some spaces in the ministry are meant to be guest-facing, like the Hall of Ministers, commemorated in magical portraits and all having a conversation about the trial and their perspective on Umbridge, [including] Pius Thickness,” says Gritzer. “We have Millicent Bagnold, and she was minister in the ‘80s. She’s this completely fierce Joan Collins-like character.”

Other areas are more canonically restricted, but “we get an inside view going through the Auror headquarters. We get to see how the Aurors connect things and catch Death Eaters. We also get a glimpse into Umbridge’s office, which is a very ridiculously pink place full of cats,” teases Gritzer. Adds Vyas, “You’ll see things from the films that you’ve seen before, but there’s definitely aspects of both architecture and even Fantastic Beasts that are new.”

The queue is only half the experience, however. “What you’re experiencing [on the ride] — no one’s been in a ministry lift shaft before,” Gritzer says of the attraction’s car. “In the films, you see how the lifts go all over the place, and that’s what we do.” Using many of the same designers as Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure — an attraction both Vyas and Gritzer worked on — the Epic experience serves as a blend of nostalgia and adventure that will uniquely expand the universe-building of the Harry Potter universe films and parks.  

“Typically, we try to do one or two cool new things to always push the envelope [on attractions]. This attraction has taken it to another level where literally every system has something new,” says Vyas. “It’s a brand new ride system, there’s a lot of really cool show elements that have never been done before, and infrastructure-wise, there’s a lot we haven’t tried before. I think in many of our main scenes, people won’t know how we did it, or they’ll have an idea, but they won’t really understand how that just happened in front of me.”

“Celestial Park is the home of the Chronos, which opens portals all across time and connects every part of Epic Universe. But it is also about personal connection. It is a place where our guests — or our adventurers — can meet and share their stories from the day,” says Scheraldi, show director.

Celestial shares many designers that worked on Islands of Adventure’s Port of Entry, and balances nostalgia and modernity through World Fair designs and a larger 1850s to 1930s aesthetic. Inhabited by Celestians, these people are out of space and time, donning a range of wardrobe and costuming colors, prints and textures that find “where classic art can meet the freedom of space and the freedom of travel,” says Baker. “We were looking to create a world that had a timelessness, without necessarily looking futuristic, and nothing makes something look more modern than being a little too sleek or smooth.”

Supported by 40 hours of musical content (14 of which is original) and 16 background music zones, the world acts as a series of sensorily connected experiences. Lagoons (featuring over 200 fountain jets across them), fountains, and water shows are surrounded by seating, from unique benches with architectural and sculptural features to striking views at full service restaurants like The Atlantic, inspired by a Victorian aquarium and featuring mechanical fish that swim around diners. 

That’s alongside a plethora of gardens, as well as Luna’s Court of the Moon and Apollo’s Court of the Sun, which all represent distinctive musical, color, foliage, and material themes driven by a sense of mystery, adventure, and travel. These two characters will help anchor the park, as will the Chronos’ opening gate and the Helios Grand Hotel, a six-to-seven-year project and the theme park and resort’s first in-park hotel. “We worked closely with Celestial Park to be an extension of their story,” says Jessica Iaconis, assistant director, architecture and engineering. “We’re a different book in the same series, if you will, so there’s a lot of connection between us.” 

Its lobby and restaurant level as well as the rooftop Bar Helios (around 160 feet in the air, accented by a sundial-like cartouche and a printed star map on the bar’s acoustical ceiling) are open to all park guests, with the Mediterranean-themed accommodations internally and externally mirroring Celestial Park’s cosmic nature. Within the hotel, color schemes go from sunset colors of yellows and oranges on the first floor to deep blues as floors climb before eventually turning black and gold at the rooftop. And at the top of Helios, you can view Celestial Park’s subtly shifting hardscape and landscaping, which not only goes from a cool to warm palette as guests move from the Chronos towards the hotel, but shifts in color choices and type of plants based on the portal you’re walking toward. 

Like the land and hardscape, the music will also begin to shift as guests move away from around, away from the courts — Luna with its more string and woodwings music profile, Apollo more brass and percussion — towards restaurants or each portal, where it’s “getting arranged differently or becoming more simplified,” says Coladonato. That approach to blending will spill over into the visual experience of the portals themselves, with their curved LED screens visually referencing the energy of Celestial Park edging on one side, the respective world on the other, and in between “gorgeous nebulas” that mix the world’s energies, like the lightning and “inky mysterious darkness” of the Dark Universe portal, she adds. 

“Epic Universe is going to be one of the most technically advanced theme parks of all time, and one of the ways that we show that is that the whole world is interconnected between our lighting and our fountain systems,” explains Scheraldi, noting that, separately, coordinated fountain shows will take place in the world throughout the day. “We show that energy shift from day to night, so we will have an event moment where the world shifts over that will utilize our full lighting package and our fountains, as well as original music.”

One million individual points of light will help make that day-to-night show possible, in a moment that will affect even the attractions. Dualing coaster Stardust Racers will operate without a lit track at night to create a stronger feeling of a shooting comet while flipping its soundtrack from the daytime’s brassy sound that imbues adventure and going to the races with a celestial, synthy nighttime energy. Riders will be able to experience that separate sound at night, and a demarcation in the music during the “celestial spin” inversion, which flips one coaster train over the other, allowing riders to look up and down at each. 

According to Coladonato, riders of the Constellation Carousel will garner an even stronger feeling of being “caught in the Milky Way” at night as well, as the round table attraction rises six feet into the air and independently rotates forwards and in reverse through three smaller ride tables featuring illuminated vehicles modeled after the constellations moving to one of the attraction’s seven different compositions. “The amazing technology of that ride, and what we’re able to do with our individual ride vehicles is something wholly unique,” says Coladonato. “The gambit of genres and styles on this ride are is going to shock everyone.”

March 11, 8:02 a.m. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the height of Helios Grand Hotel’s Bar Helios sits at 180 feet. It is around 160 feet.