Super Bowl ad gives first look at Universal Studios’ Fast & Furious ride

The next major attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood won’t open until this summer but television viewers will get a glimpse of the ride in an ad showing before Sunday’s Super Bowl.

The 30-second ad to be shown during the pre-game coverage will feature the new Fast & Furious -- Supercharged ride, a 3-D, hydraulic-motion ride based on the popular movie franchise.

The ride is part of a larger $1.6-billion, 25-year upgrade plan for the Univeral Studios’ property that includes the opening last year of Despicable Me Minion Mayhem and the opening next year of the highly anticipated Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction.

The Fast & Furious attraction will roll guests on the Studio Tour tram ride into a newly constructed 65,000-square-foot structure that will house a 360-degree screen. A total of 34 projectors will cast high-definition 3-D images on a 400-foot-long screen that surrounds the guests.

The ride will borrow from the same technology used on the King Kong 360 3-D attraction, which uses a combination of hydraulic lifts and 3-D images to bring the action to life.

Theme park officials declined to discuss the cost of the ad but NBC executives have said that 30-second Super Bowl ads sold for an average of $4.5 million each.

“What better place is there than the Super Bowl to launch a campaign where millions of viewers huddle for non-stop, edge-of-your-seat suspense?” asked Larry Kurzweil, president of Universal Studios Hollywood.

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