King Kong Construction Update Orlando 11/23/14

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ORLANDO ?????? Universal Orlando has topped out the show building for its new King Kong attraction, as we've gotten our first look at the blueprints for the upcoming attraction at Islands of Adventure.

The new Kong will occupy the show building under construction between Toon Lagoon and Jurassic Park. You can see the Jurassic Park show building to the left, for scale, in the higher-res version. This show building is almost as large as the Forbidden Journey show building, and we've gotten our first look at the plans for what visitors will find inside.

Now, we haven't seen a complete set of blueprints, as we did for Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. But we've seen enough to learn a couple of very interesting details about the new attraction.

First, this is not going to be a duplicate of the King Kong 360:3D attraction from Universal Studios Hollywood. Nor will it be a recreation of the old Kongfrontation ride from Universal Studios Florida. Obviously, this will be a dark ride (thus, the huge show building), and it will include a mix of screens and practical sets.

The blueprints we've seen call for a show scene with a massive set of screens on either side of the ride track, as found on the Kong encounter on Hollywood's Studio Tour. However, the next scene includes plans for a massive Kong animatronic, as we saw years ago in the old Kong ride and Kong encounter at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood, respectively. Kong appears on the right side of the ride track as ride vehicles curve around Kong to their right, allowing a long moment with the Big Ape. We will pass along additional details as they are leaked to us.

Disney Legend Bob Gurr designed Universal's original Kong animatronic, which burned in the Hollywood backlot fire that destroyed the original Kong encounter in 2008. Universal chose to replace that encounter with the screen-based King Kong 360:3D attraction, while Universal Studios Florida's Kong ride closed in 2002, to be replaced by Revenge of the Mummy

Credit to themeparkinsider