4. What if Islands of Adventure had been a hit?

Universal was thinking big when it came to their second theme park in Orlando. Islands of Adventure was meant to reintroduce what Universal was capable of in the public's eye, finally leaving behind "backlots" and reaching for the kind of immersive, thematic, colorful fantasy worlds made popular by Disney. In many ways, it worked. When the park opened in 1999, it was a wonderful showcase of themed design and new ride technologies, "inventing" the "IP land" altogether and living up to its tagline – "The World's Most Technologically Advanced Theme Park.''

Unfortunately, the infamous "Universal Studios Escape" marketing moniker meant to explain that Universal now had two distinct theme parks in Orlando famously flopped. Attendance at Islands of Adventure was incredibly below expectations. It took Universal years to figure out how to explain to guests what Islands of Adventure was, and it wasn't really until the Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Hogsmeade opened in 2010 that the park entered the global conversation like it was meant to.

It's wild to imagine how different theme parks would be today if Islands of Adventure had not underperformed. For example, we know that Disney had a laundry list of projects they were ready to greenlight for Walt Disney World in the wake of Islands of Adventure. If the park had been successful, for example, we might see Fire Mountain rising over Adventureland, or a Disney Villains land beyond Fantasyland. Ultimately, the park's underperformance meant that Disney could just let those projects go. But if Islands of Adventure had been the hit that both Disney and Universal expected, who knows how different the parks would look today...

5. What if Universal never got Harry Potter?

As the story goes, Disney had been in early talks with the creator of Harry Potter about potentially licensing the book series (and the Warner Bros. produced film series) for use in its parks. Ultimately, those discussions fell through. Disney might've expected that no one would be willing to bend to author J.K. Rowling's famously-fickle demands for the treatment of her characters, but Universal was willing to go in for the rebound.

Ultimately, the 2007 announcement that Universal had acquired the rights to Potter for its parks was a jaw-dropper... but the way they used it was even more stunning, positioning 2010's Hogsmeade as the first "Living Land" plucked from the screen. No Coca-Cola. No Harry Potter LEGO sets. No meet-and-greets with Harry; just a wholly-immersive, to-scale recreation of the world seen on screen. A place where guests could dine, shop, and live the way the characters had, becoming part of the Wizarding World. 

It's hard to imagine alternate realities to this Nexus Event, but truly imagine where we might be if Disney had licensed Potter for its own parks... or if Warner Bros. had decided to go it alone, opening their own theme parks in Orlando. Where would Universal be? Disney? Given that Islands of Adventure's Hogsmeade and Universal Studios' Diagon Alley are considered two of the greatest theme park lands on Earth, it's difficult to imagine any other interpretation of how Harry Potter might've come to theme parks... But just try...  

6. What if COVID hadn't affected the parks?

Theme parks can weather disaster. This millennium alone, Disney and Universal have successfully survived an industry-gutting tourism downturn after the 9/11 terror attacks and a subsequent wave of financial woes during the 2008 recession. But no one could've ever predicted COVID-19, a global pandemic that slowed every single industry in every country on Earth to never before seen lows. We'll probably never know the extent of the closures and cancellations that came from this era, but we do know that the lingering effects of COVID obliterated expectations for ride construction timelines and saw Disney lose immense sums of money from the Parks division that is only now recovering fully.

Obviously, wondering "what if COVID never happened" in the context of theme parks feels selfish and silly given that so many billions of lives were impacted by financial upheaval, career chaos, long-term health consequences, and death. But it's worth imagining where, for example, Disney's theme parks might be today if Bob Iger had never stepped down to see Chapek rise; if TRON had been open for the start of Walt Disney World's 50th; if Avengers Campus would have its E-Ticket by now; if Genie+ never had the chance to replace FastPass; if a global setback in supply chain production hadn't changed everything at Disney Parks... 

"What if...?" It's one of the toughest questions any theme park fan can ask themselves... But which of these timeline-fracturing "Nexus Events" would you be interested to see the alternate, branching universe for?