NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell Confirms Epic Universe Will Open in Orlando Summer 2025

NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell has confirmed that Epic Universe, Universal Orlando’ Resorts third theme park which is currently under construction, will be opening in the summer of 2025.

During a question and answer session at the UBS Global TMT Conference in New York City, Shell stated “We’re right on track. Literally right on track.”

Although he didn’t say exactly when Epic Universe would open he said, “There’s clearly a demand-supply imbalance. I think we’re opening a theme park at the right time.”

This ties in the timeline issued during the company’s 2021 Q4 Comcast Earnings Call, when the company confirmed that they plan to open Epic Universe by the summer of 2025.

While there’s still a way to go, it’s encouraging to hear that NBCUniversal are so confident about an opening date!

In an interesting comment, Shell stated that the new theme park will also appeal to conventioneers attending events at the Orange County Convention Center.

“It’s also very interesting that the park is very close to the convention center,” Shell stated. “An interesting experiment for us, we believe we can get the attendance we need just on the basis of the demand of the market, but it’s also going to be interesting to see as the convention business comes back, do we … the park is built so that you can come into one land and not the whole park. Are we going to get nighttime convention business? Which is kind of an interesting experiment for us.”

Shell's comments lend credence to the rumor that Epic Universe will be unlike any other theme park here in Orlando.

It's widely believed that Epic Universe will include an open hub, where guests will be able to visit without a ticket, and pay to visit only one land and not the entire park.

Concept art of Epic Universe, shows a park that is build much more like Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom than other Universal parks. It uses a hub and spoke model where the different lands come together into a central plaza, and guests can go off in any direction to whatever area they wish to experience.

The open hub rumor indicates that the area where guests enter the park will be open to the public, much like CityWalk, where guests can shop or dine without buying a ticket.

They can then choose which land or lands they wish to pay to enjoy, with indications that certain attractions will even be included in the hub area, separate from the actual lands.

Epic Universe will have the ability to sell tickets for each land, or possibly even each attraction depending on whatever technology is implemented to allow for an open hub that will allow, or prevent, guests from moving to various areas of the park depending on what kind of ticket they had.

It’s an interesting idea that has obvious upsides for Universal, where the millions of visitors to Orange County Convention Center who are working during the day, could pop over to Epic Universe, which isn’t that far away, and spend money for an evening’s entertainment.

It's interesting to note that Universal held the press conference announcing Epic Universe inside the convention center, leaning weight on how important the convention center is to the new theme park!

Another interesting option is that Epic Universe could be much like a traditional theme park during the day, with a pay once, play all day ticket, and then at night the hub area could up for additional visitors to come and spend money. (ie: convention customers!)

Whatever actually happens when the park opens, it sure appears that Epic Universe is going to do something different with, how it all works will be interesting to discover as we get closer to the Summer 2025 opening.

Epic Universe will consist of four distinct, fully-immersive themed lands, with Universal previously confirming that Super Nintendo World will be one of the lands.

The remaining three lands have not been confirmed by Universal, but it's widely known that the park will include Universal Classic Monsters, and How to Train Your Dragon, plus the rumored The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic.