Paramount Parks

**Paramount Parks** was an operator of Paramount's Kings Island, Paramount's Kings Dominion, Paramount's Great America, Paramount's Carowinds, and Paramount Canada's Wonderland, which annually attracted about 13 million patrons. National Amusements-owned Viacom assumed control of the company as part of its acquisition of Paramount Pictures in 1994. On June 30, 2006, Cedar Fair Entertainment Company acquired the company, and although licensed through 2017, Cedar Fair dropped Paramount/CBS-licensed names from the parks after the 2007 season. The operator has continued to be defunct despite efforts to use Paramount intellectual properties at various park projects after the sale in 2006 by entities unaffiliated with the original Paramount Parks company.

## About Paramount Parks

The company once owned and operated Paramount's Kings Island, Paramount's Kings Dominion, Paramount's Great America, Paramount's Carowinds, and Paramount Canada's Wonderland and managed Bonfante Gardens in Gilroy, California. From late 2001 until late 2004, Paramount Parks also managed Terra Mítica, an amusement park in Benidorm, Valencia, Spain.

## History

Paramount Communications, previously known as Gulf+Western, in turn, had acquired the parks from Nelson Schwab and his management group. Schwab and his KECO Entertainment acquired the group in a management-led LBO from the Taft Broadcasting Company, which had built Kings Island in Cincinnati using cast-off rides from the Coney Island amusement park in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The parks were part of Viacom's Blockbuster Entertainment division until 2002 when they moved back to Paramount Pictures. After another Viacom corporate shuffle in 2004, the parks became part of Viacom Recreation, a Nickelodeon and MTV Networks division.

On January 1, 2006, as Viacom went through a corporate split (creating a new version of Viacom and renaming the original company CBS Corporation), Paramount Parks was assigned to CBS Corporation. To "toss overboard" any unnecessary company assets, CBS Corporation sought to sell the parks during the 2006 season, planning to continue their operation until they found a buyer. Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., owners of more well-known Cedar Point and Knott's Berry Farm theme parks, approached the company in 2006. Within the acquisition, there was a license for ten years of use of the Paramount prefix on the parks and Paramount properties at the former Paramount parks. Cedar Fair opted to remove most mentions of Paramount and Paramount intellectual properties by mid-2007. The only references to a Viacom property remaining were the characters and titles used in Nickelodeon Universe (Kings Island) and Nickelodeon Central (Kings Dominion, Carowinds, Great America, and Canada's Wonderland), all of which were re-themed to the children's area utilized by most of Cedar Fair's legacy parks, Peanuts for the 2010 season.

In June 2007, Viacom revealed a Paramount Theme Park to be developed and opened at the Dubailand complex (currently on hold) in the United Arab Emirates. They made no further developments, and they abandoned the project in 2016.

In October 2011, plans for a new Paramount theme park developed in Alhama, Murcia, were revealed in Madrid. The resort to be called Paramount Park was to be the second-largest theme park in Europe after Disneyland, Paris. Projects to continue with the construction of the park have been scrapped.

In December 2018, Paramount Pictures signed a deal with Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment to install the first Paramount-branded theme park in Incheon, South Korea. It would open in 2025, three years after Inspire Integrated Entertainment Resort's opening. Paramount and Daewoo Motor Sales previously announced in 2008 that it would build Paramount Movie Park Korea in Songdo near Incheon, but they never announced the plans due to Daewoo Motor Sales's financial problems.

In December 2019, Paramount Pictures announced with London Resort Company Holdings a Paramount-theme in London, United Kingdom. The London Resort will open in 2024 and start construction in 2021.

## Park acquisitions

Paramount did not build their parks, but instead were pre-existing and purchased as a whole, rebranded with the Paramount name. Virtually, it seemed Paramount was attempting to enter into the movie-based theme-park business popularized by the amusement park and resort companies, such as Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, Six Flags Theme Parks, Cedar Fair and Universal Parks & Resorts.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Taft Broadcasting created a division called KECO Entertainment (King's Entertainment Company), which they formed to build theme parks nationwide. In 1972 and 1975, KECO built Kings Island and Kings Dominion, respectively, and in 1975, KECO led a forced purchase on the Carowinds Corporation, a bankrupt company, leaving them no choice but to sell Carowinds theme park in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1981, KECO opened Canada's Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada.

In 1984 hotel company Marriott, owner of two parks named Great America, was looking to divest itself of its parks. One of the parks was in Silicon Valley in San Francisco's exurbs, and the other in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. The California park was purchased by KECO, while the Illinois Park became part of the Six Flags chain.

In 1992, after 22 years of outstanding success and thrill classic entertainment experience management, KECO Entertainment sold their six parks to Paramount Communications (which was later purchased by Viacom). Subsequently, in 1993, the "Paramount's" prefix was added to the parks, excluding Canada's Wonderland, which was renamed "Paramount Canada's Wonderland," to avoid using a double possessive noun. Thus, they established the first five Paramount Parks: Paramount's Kings Island, Paramount's Kings Dominion, Paramount's Great America, Paramount's Carowinds, and Paramount Canada's Wonderland.

In 2000, Paramount Parks purchased most shares in Spanish theme park Terra Mitica (Land of Myth), branding it Terra Mitica: **A Paramount Park**. In 2004, Paramount dropped its shares in the park, and the owners reverted the name without the Paramount suffix.

## Theme

Paramount Parks was one of the few remaining seasonal park operators to exclusively use themed layouts and rides (a practice usually observed only by annual park operators such as Universal Theme Parks, Six Flags Theme Parks, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts). This aspect likely helped the parks stand out against other regional competitors such as Cedar Fair (who later purchased the parks), who ran lightly themed amusement parks exclusively.

For example, while Cedar Fair's flagship park Cedar Point debuted Wicked Twister and Top Thrill Dragster in 2002 and 2003, Kings Island opened Tomb Raider: The Ride Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Mansion. While costing only slightly less than Cedar Point's additions, these two attractions were indoor, highly themed, immersive rides with synchronized musical scores and Hollywood special effects. The same was at Paramount's last additions to their parks, The Italian Job: Stunt Track, which are family-oriented roller coasters that also feature flames, water, synchronized music, and many movie props.

When Cedar Fair acquired the Paramount Parks, they revolutionized their season pass system using Paramount's blueprint. Also, they absorbed some of Paramount's theme-focused entertainment, combining it with their well-proven thrills to create some of their most famous attractions: Maverick at Cedar Point and Diamondback at Kings Island, among others.

Without the Paramount Pictures film licenses, many of the Paramount Parks' rides were renamed to more generic names so as not to infringe on Paramount's copyrights. Many of these changes were "in name only," having no actual bearing on the ride's appearance. Because of the level of theme involved in Paramount's rides, though, (such as The Italian Job: Stunt Track and Tomb Raider: The Ride), some rides did lose core elements, such as synchronized musical scores, special effects, and pre-shows (thereby eliminating storylines).

* They renamed the **Drop Zone: Stunt Tower** to the **Drop Tower: Scream Zone** at all five former Paramount parks.
* **Top Gun** was renamed **Afterburn** at Carowinds and **Flight Deck** at Canada's Wonderland and California's Great America. The ride at Kings Island was also first renamed **Flight Deck** from 2008-2013, then renamed **The Bat** (in honour of a prior suspended roller coaster at the park) in 2014.
* They renamed **Face/Off** at Kings Island to **Invertigo**.
* **The Italian Job: Stunt Track** at Canada's Wonderland, Kings Dominion, and Kings Island were all renamed **Backlot Stunt Coaster**.
* **Tomb Raider: The Ride** and **Tomb Raider: FireFall** at Kings Island and Kings Dominion were both renamed **The Crypt**. Cedar Fair has since removed both as of 2020.
	+ They renamed the roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland to **Time Warp**.
* Cedar Fair renamed the **Days of Thunder** go-kart tracks to **Thunder Alley**.
* They renamed the **Paramount Action-FX Theater** to just the **Action Theater**.
* They renamed **The Paramount Theatre** after each park it was located in (e.g. *Kings Island Theatre*).
* They renamed the **BORG Assimilator** Carowinds to **Nighthawk.**
* They renamed the **Cliffhanger** to **Riptide** at Canada's Wonderland.
* **Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Mansion** at Canada's Wonderland, Carowinds, Kings Dominion & Kings Island were renamed **Boo Blasters on Boo Hill**, removing the Scooby-Doo theme.
* The **Nickelodeon** and **Hanna-Barbera** children's areas in all of the parks remained dormant until after the 2009 season when they rethemed to Cedar Fair's Peanuts characters name **Planet Snoopy**.
* There were two "Wayne's World" themed lands at Kings Dominion and Carowinds.

Perhaps the most notable change between park owners, Kings Island's $20 million indoor Tomb Raider: The Ride had its water effects, lasers, Hollywood lighting, pre-show, synchronized musical score, film props, artificial fog, and flame effects removed. Notably, The Crypt at Kings Dominion, similar to the ride at Kings Island except that it was outdoors, retained all of its original theming, music, film props, lighting, fog, and flames.

## Sale to Cedar Fair

On January 27, 2006, the then-newly minted CBS Corporation announced its intent to sell Paramount Parks because it did not fit well within its core business (producing and distributing television content). Several groups expressed interest in purchasing the company, several placed bids, and On May 22, 2006, Cedar Fair announced it had outbid competitors and intended to purchase all five parks in the Paramount Parks chain, including Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton and the management agreement of Bonfante Gardens. On June 30, 2006, Cedar Fair announced that it had completed its acquisition of Paramount Parks from CBS Corporation in a cash transaction valued at US$1.24 billion. Shortly following the transfer of ownership, Cedar Fair began the process of integrating the two companies. With the Paramount Parks purchase, Cedar Fair LP announced that it would do business under the name Cedar Fair Entertainment Company. Cedar Fair LP remains the legal company name.

## Removal of the Paramount references

The individual parks continued to operate under their Paramount names during the 2006 season. After 14 years of operation under Paramount, Cedar Fair began removing the Paramount name and logo from the parks in January 2007. They changed the main parks' names back to their original pre-Paramount names (they removed the Paramount's prefix) with the Cedar Fair corporate logo added. They renamed Bonfante Gardens to Gilroy Gardens. Cedar Fair began removing references to Paramount Pictures from all parks.

Although the acquisition granted Cedar Fair a ten-year licensing deal for Paramount names and icons, such as *Star Trek* and *Tomb Raider*, Cedar Fair opted to terminate the agreement and not pay an annual licensing fee for all properties besides Nickelodeon, which they terminated during 2009. The process of removing references to Paramount/CBS properties began in the parks during the beginning of the 2007 season, and by the 2008 season, they removed most of the significant references from the parks, besides some minor remnants and logos occasionally found in the park.

## Paramount Parks, Europe

On 10 October 2011, it was reported that Paramount would develop a theme park in Murcia, Spain, with work set to start in 2012. The $1.5 billion Paramount Murcia park hoped to rival Disneyland Paris as a European tourist destination. The resort would have featured 30 attractions with an adjacent shopping center, hotels and casino.

In November 2013, there were indications that the promoter and developer of Paramount Murcia (Premursa SA) would be in a position to open the park to the public in the second half of 2015; however, this never happened.

Following further setbacks such as the death of the promoting companies CEO (Jesus Samper) and a High Court ruling, this park's construction did not continue, and they reclassified the area for agricultural purposes.

### London Paramount

Main article: London Resort
On 8 October 2012, developers unveiled plans for a new £2billion Paramount licensed theme park on the Swanscombe peninsula, Kent, in the United Kingdom. However, it announced in the summer of 2017 that the deal between Paramount and the park developer, London Resort Company Holdings (LCHR), had collapsed, partly due to LCHR wishing to work with other media broadcasting companies alongside Paramount. In June 2019, LCHR announced that Paramount had rejoined the project, which is now named London Resort and would open in 2024.

## Proposed properties

* **Paramount Murcia** (Murcia, Spain).
* **Paramount Movie Park Korea**

## Former properties

### Amusement parks

* Paramount Canada's Wonderland (Vaughan, Ontario) (renamed Canada's Wonderland)
* Paramount's Carowinds (Charlotte, North Carolina) (renamed Carowinds)
* Paramount's Great America (Santa Clara, California) (renamed California's Great America)
* Paramount's Kings Dominion (Doswell, Virginia) (renamed Kings Dominion)
* Paramount's Kings Island (Mason, Ohio) (renamed Kings Island)
* Bonfante Gardens (Gilroy, California); (renamed Gilroy Gardens)
* Terra Mítica, a Paramount Park: Benidorm, Valencian Community, Spain.

### Water parks

* Boomerang Bay (California's Great America, Carowinds, Kings Island)
* Splash Works (Canada's Wonderland)
* WaterWorks (Kings Dominion)
* Raging Waters (San Jose, California); bought by Ogden Corporation in 1999

### Other

* Star Trek: The Experience (Las Vegas, Nevada) (closed)