2. Universal Studios Florida Museum

Location: Universal Studios Florida
Current status: Unofficially confirmed
Opening date: Summer (rumored)

On June 7, 1990, Universal Studios Florida – the theme park that started Universal’s Orlando empire – will turn 25-years-old.  While the company has never before shown a willingness to celebrate either its theme park history or commemorate such milestones (not even when Universal Studios Hollywood turned the much-more-impressive 50 last summer), this time just may be different, if only to help realize Comcast’s annual attraction mandate.

The rumor that had been making the rounds for roughly the past year went a little something like this:  Universal would take the long-closed Garden of Allah Villas building, which last housed the AT&T at the Movies walk-through attraction way back in 2001, and transform it into something of a museum, showcasing props and memorabilia from the park’s long list of former attractions, ranging from Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies to the recently-shuttered Jaws.

Although the company still(!) hasn’t made the new development official, it did erect the now-ubiquitous construction walls around the Garden of Allah just this past week, thereby signaling to the world that something, indeed, is going into this neglected corner of the park’s Hollywood section.

Despite the long-lived nature of the rumor, what exactly will be awaiting guests once those walls go down may still end up being something of a surprise.  Various permutations on the original museum “leak” have cropped up over the past several months, including the possibility of Universal adding on an additional experience to the walk-through in the form of a “preview center”-type area that would display concept renderings and miniature models of future attractions and developments, including the new King Kong ride and on-site water park.  (Universal last did this in the late ‘90s, when the next-door Islands of Adventure was being built.)

Another possibility?  That there won’t be a museum component at all and the new attraction will essentially be a resurrection of the AT&T at the Movies concept – or, even, the How to Make a Mega Movie Deal attraction before that, which featured various exhibits, games, and videos about how films get produced in Hollywood.

3. Twister’s replacement

Location: Universal Studios Florida
Current status: Rumored
Opening date: Summer (rumored)

In a park that is quickly replacing all its older (and lower-quality) attractions for newer, bigger-budgeted versions that can live up to the standard that the Wizarding Worlds have erected, Twister… Ride It Out, which is shoved into a tiny corner of the New York backlot, sticks out like a sore thumb.

Even longer-lived than the USF Museum rumor is the whisperings of Twister finally being put out to pasture and replaced with – well, something that is more immersive, at the least, and more impressive, at the most.  The trouble with such a scenario, however, lies with the older attraction’s massive space limitations:  with a small(er) show building to begin with, and with the nearby Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit careening through its second story, there is barely any space left over for any kind of experience other than standing in front of a fake tornado forming in front of audiences.

Enter the rumors.  The older and more-repeated one has NBC’s legendary production facilities at Rockefeller Plaza making their way to the park, either in a more general studio tour – not unlike the one already featured in New York City – or specifically honing in on The Tonight Show, which has not only scored newfound popularity since Jimmy Fallon took over the reins in February 2014, but which also visited Universal Orlando last summer to much success and fanfare.

The newer – and far more contentious – one, which was just broken last month, posits that not only will Twister be scraped, but so will that entire section of the backlot to make room for Fast and Furious, a film series which only seems to grow in popularity with each and every passing year and which will famously be unleashed on USH this summer.

In this scenario, a Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit-esque track will be laid out throughout that entire corner of the park and will be surrounded by large 3D screens to simulate the, well, fast and furious nature of the franchise’s car chases and other over-the-top action sequences.  Should this replacement prove to be the real McCoy, expect its opening date to be pushed back from this year to next, at the very earliest.