A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

YES, BUT WILL WE GET TO VISIT THE HUFFLEPUFF COMMON ROOM? Jim Hill has a plethora of details on Universal Orlando's planned Harry Potter-themed attraction, including a possible Disney plan to counter with, yes, pretty much what I predicted -- retheming the Magic Kingdom's Adventureland as Pirate Land. Apparently, at some point in 2004-05, Disney had to choose between pursuing J.K. Rowling and pursuing the deal for Pixar, and, as Hill put it,

Yeah, I'm sure that they'd express some regret that the company wasn't ultimately able to acquire the theme park rights to the Harry Potter characters. But then when you compare that lost opportunity with being able to own Pixar (More importantly, to own all of the merchandising rights to every single one of the characters that John Lasseter & his talented team have created and/or will create) ... It's really not a contest.

Kim Masters adds that "Rowling's vision supposedly was that each person would enter through the Leaky Cauldron, tap on a brick, gain access to Diagon Alley, then proceed to a platform in a version of King's Cross station and take a train to Hogwarts. Disney figured it would have had to build multiple Leaky Cauldron entrances to cycle in small groups every two minutes. Admission to the attraction envisioned by Rowling would have run north of $800 per person. Disney's thought it might be able to drive the cost down a bit to make it comparable to Anheuser-Busch's Discovery Cove, where folks pay a few hundred bucks to swim with dolphins. But in the end, Disney and Rowling could not come to terms."