Expanding Epic Universe, Part II: An Armchair-Imagineered Build-Out of Universal Orlando’s Cosmic Theme Park

Welcome back! As you probably know, my Build-Out of Epic Universe became so outsized and image-heavy that it attempts to add to it crashed my website. So for the first time ever, I am proud to present… Expanding Epic Universe, Part II!

If you haven’t already, I recommend that before you dig into this half of the Build-Out, you start with Part I. That’s where we examine some of the foundational considerations that shape this imaginary, multiversal variant of the park, then lay out plans for imaginary expansions of Celestial Park, Super Nintendo World, and a first from-scratch world.

Tap above to catch up with where we left off. And without further adieu, let’s continue our “Grand Circle Tour” of my Built-Out, expanded version of Epic Universe.

DARK UNIVERSE

Background

Let’s just take a moment to consider that in the year of our lord twenty twenty-five, Universal constructed an entire themed land dedicated to a nearly-century-old black and white series of films. Such is the power of the “Universal Monsters” – a franchise-before-franchises that most of us have probably never actually sat down and watched, but that nonetheless permeates our collective consciousness.

Were it not for 1931’s Frankenstein, you might not know about that monster at all – and if you did read Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, you probably wouldn’t envision the monster being green or having bolts in its neck. The archetypes we have around vampires wouldn’t exist without the same year’s Dracula. Nor would there be a Mummy, an Invisible Man, a Wolf Man, a Bride of Frankenstein, or a Creature from the Black Lagoon.

To an extent that’s essentially unmatched until, I guess, the Disney Renaissance and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Universal’s classic creature features literally created the definitive forms of characters that had otherwise existed only in literature (or not at all).

From roughly 1923 (with Lon Cheney’s Phantom of the Opera) to the mid-’50s, Universal’s Monsters were de facto mascots of the horror genre, laboratories for experimenting with makeup and special effects, and living embodiments of the history and power of Hollywood filmmaking. Without those Monsters, Universal as we know it may not exist at all…!

But just as the Monsters themselves changed to adapt to new eras, shifting tastes, and evolving pop culture, so has Universal’s use of them. After all, the company effectively “owns” the definitive form of these iconic characters (just as Disney created the definitive version of The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast or The Snow Queen), and thus has sought out ways to keep them present in pop culture.

That’s not always an easy thing to do. Today’s view of horror is a lot less subtle, cinematic, and operatic than these black-and-white monsters. Which is perhaps why one of the ways Universal has tried to leverage and reinvigorate their “ownership” of Monsters is to continuously adapt them. The most well-liked must be 1999’s The Mummy, which spawned its own mini-franchise (and the Modern Marvel: Revenge of the Mummy).

But in the 2010s, Universal famously declared that it would reboot its Monsters franchise in an MCU-style “Dark Universe” of interconnected films starting with a 2017 redux of The Mummy starring Tom Cruise. As tends to happen when you foist the weight of launching a franchise onto a film that no one asked for, it fell apart right out of the gate. On the studio side, Universal has instead pivoted to a la carte, standalone films centered on modern reinventions of The Invisible Man (2020), Dracula (2023), and Wolf Man (2025) but each is far smaller and more intimate in its execution and budget.

Yet here, 102 years after their debut, the Universal Monsters officially gain headlining status and 21st century treatment in the company’s new flagship theme park. Think about that! Reclaiming the name of the doomed Dark Universe cinematic franchise, the Dark Universe land sends us to a world where these Monsters are real. Dark Universe is incarnate as the village of Darkmoor – a sort of burned out stone village that’s been at war with the creatures of the night for generations.

The village itself includes “in-universe” retail spaces and restaurants. For example, DAS STAKEHAUS is a tavern built atop the land’s Catacombs, run by the “familiars” of vampires, which explains the “Bird on a Stake” chicken kebobs, “Blood Orange” chicken sandwiches, and “Darkmoor Black Wings.” Just the opposite, the iconic BURNING BLADE TAVERN is the bar where tireless monster hunters convene for a drink and a “Garlic Stake” pretzel.

The land contains two rides. First is CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF – a late addition to the park’s roster. The ride is a launched, spinning family coaster that, we suppose, is meant to convey the adrenaline, hunger, and chaos of transforming into a werewolf. The ride is easily the least compelling in the park’s lineup if only because “what you see is what you get.” The only “surprise” is provided via a mid-course swing launch through an old cabin in the woods and the allure of “ooh, what happens in there?”

Unfortunately, the answer is, nothing really. There are static figures of a werewolf that you may or may not see based on your spinning car’s direction at the moment, but altogether the ride is what it is – an off-the-shelf roller coaster clearly greenlit at the last moment to up the park’s capacity, ride count, and appeal to families. The ride ends somewhat embarrassingly with a static figure (like, mannequin-style) of Maleva, leader of The Guild of Mystics whose forested camp the whole thing is meant to take place in. It’s fine, but y’know.

The land’s other attraction is MONSTERS UNCHAINED: THE FRANKENSTEIN EXPERIMENT. It’s one thing for Universal to cede some space in its brand new theme park to the Monsters that started it all – but it’s really something that they were afforded a dark ride like this.

Guests enter the ride via Frankenstein Manor – the jaw-dropping gothic home that looms over Darkmoor like a shadow. And indeed, we find that within, the reclusive great-great-granddaughter of Dr. Victor Frankenstein is a pariah, obsessively dedicated to the generational work of proving that Victor was not a monster – despite the grave-robbing, sewing corpse parts together, and reanimating the dead.

She invites us to meet her greatest experiment yet: a new Frankenstein creation – “better than the original!” – whose nine foot tall animatronic figure we meet in the ride’s pre-show must be among the best animatronics on Earth. Then, it’s off to the Catacombs that run beneath Darkmoor where Victoria will demonstrate her heroism by showing off the monsters she’s entrapped here, all centered on her greatest capture yet: Dracula himself.

The ride uses the same “KUKA Robo Arm” ride system as Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, but in a fresh take that allows for a different range of motion and encourages guests to look around at incredible scenic design and a cast of ultra-complex animatronics that – frankly – serve as an entire army of figures, any one of which could take on Rise of the Resistance’s Kylo Ren. That’s especially apparent when (you guessed it!) Dracula escapes, “setting the nightmares free” and asking us to consider, “Who are the real monsters? The ones in chains, or the ones who put us there?”

Again, it’s worth considering that in 2025, we received an industry-leading dark ride based on Universal’s classic Monsters, packed with cutting edge technology and animatronics that are literally among the best in the world. Even so, Dark Universe is probably the smallest of Epic’s worlds in terms of acreage, but it also has the unique gift of having a built-in expansion pad specific to its use. So, let’s use it!

Build-Out

Rumor has always circulated that the small, 3.5 acre expansion pad set aside in the rear of Dark Universe is meant to be a boat-based attraction centered on the Gill-Man, also known as the “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” Even if that’s even true, it could mean a lot of different things… It could be a white water raft ride a la Kali River Rapids; a slow-moving “scenic” boat ride; a log flume dark ride; indoors, outdoors, or both; fan theories often suggest that the “Phase II” ride would be a newfangled “Rocking Boat” thrill ride by Universal’s manufacturer du jour, Mack.

But even before we get to ride hardware, I ran into a lot of “narrative” trouble with making this make sense. If you haven’t seen the 1954 film, The Creature from the Black Lagoon takes place in the Amazon. I guess we don’t exactly know where Darkmoor is located, but probably not South America, right? Also, there’s one Gill-Man, and he spends most of the movie being a barely-seen threat before basically abducting a beautiful woman King Kong style, and then he gets shot. Sure, there are sequels, but as a film, Creature from the Black Lagoon is kind of moody and atmospheric and morose enough that you can see why Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water could easily recontextualize it into a sad, misunderstood love story.

So while I get the notion that the Gill-Man and a boat ride go hand-in-hand, I think it’s a hard sell to assign this singular monster a standalone ride without taking some liberties, and it takes a little creativity to fold it into Dark Universe (where the weight of a “Living Land” requires more narrative and logic and context and “sense” than “go get on that boat and sail around in the woods for some reason while a motivation-less Gill-Man jumpscares you”).

I gave it a try with a ride I call MYSTERY OF THE BLACK RIVER. To make the whole thing work in the land’s wider context, I added an additional “loop” to the land’s pathways, effectively turning Dark Universe into a figure-8. That new, further loop is basically waterfront along the forested “Black River.” I imagined that throughout the 20th century, the people of Darkmoor cultivated an industry of fishing and canning here… but that years ago, the river turned black – a “curse” blamed on the Frankenstein family – and the canning industry dried up. Today, the only ships that pull into the docks of Darkmoor are mysterious shipments for the reclusive Victoria… including a recent one that went wrong.

The “weenie” here would be the old cannery on the edge of the river, with its windows aged and smashed, and a decaying sign for the Darkmoor Canning Co. on its roof. Queueing in the musty, dripping interior of the cannery, guests would load onto old fishing boats to set off down the Black River… of course, one of the first sights guests would see (and indeed, onlookers walking along the river) is a shipping vessel dead along the water, a hole in its walls appearing clawed out from within.

What would follow in my Build-Out is basically a spiritual sequel to the Lost Legend: JAWS… with a twist. Because sure, the Gill-Man would erupt from the water at least once or twice to startle guests on board… but throughout the narrated journey, we would learn that there’s nothing supernatural about the “Black River”… indeed, it’s a byproduct of industry jettisoning poisoned runoff into the waterways – yep, the residents of Darkmoor themselves are responsible for the blackening of the river and the fishing industry’s demise.

So as the true source of the “curse” is revealed, our mission changes to an uneasy truce with the Gill-Man to plug the runoff, leaving us well positioned for a finale where – in a secret waterfall-fed cove of now-crystal-clear water – we see the Gill-Man protecting a nest of amphibious eggs.

True fans of Universal Monsters can tell me that this whole conceit is just too sappy and works too hard to find “the bright side” in a land that’s not about that. Maybe this ride needs to be thrilling and frightening throughout, but I think something like this keeps to the sense that “monsters” are complicated. I don’t think the Gill-Man is the same as Jaws, you know? I’m not sure we can just have him continuously jump scare us and then blow him up at the end and play triumphant music. This arrangement instead gives us a real story with a resolution. All it would require, I think, is removing the Gill-Man from Monsters Unchained to imply that the boat Victoria chartered to bring him to town couldn’t contain him.

The other benefit here is that this ride creates an “island” that we can use to our advantage. I call it MOONLIGHT MARSH – a sort of Monsters-themed Tom Sawyer Island where guests can explore caves, climb through the industrial remnants of the canning industry, and explore a rusted tanker ship that includes a splash pad. (Yes, I sort of sinisterly love the idea that Universal could see Disney’s elimination of Tom Sawyer Island for Cars and Villains and counter it with… an interactive island of play in the middle of its Monsters land.)

Altogether, our “expanded” Dark Universe still isn’t a behemoth, adding just one new attraction. But I’m hopeful that this rounds out the world’s lineup with a no-height-requirement ride that deepens Darkmoor’s “lore” and a family exploration zone that again extends linger time, adds interactivity, and creates a whole new space to get lost in.