LOS ANGELES - Universal Studios will open an audience-participation show based on the NBC TV show Fear Factor at its theme parks in Orlando and Los Angeles in May.
The Fear Factor Live attraction will pit theme park guests against each other in a series of extreme stunts, Universal executives said Monday.
The exact stunts have not been disclosed, although participants could be hung from harnesses and even challenged to eat unappetizing concoctions, the company said. Contestants will not eat live bugs, as they do on TV.
"We are going to put our guests in situations where they will come face to face with nasty, weird stuff," said Scott Trowbridge, executive vice president of creative development at Universal Parks and Resorts.
"Are we going to go as gross as the show? No. But you don't have to resort to live bugs to test people's limits."
The attraction will be held in a theater that holds about 1,800 people. Six people will be chosen to compete while other audience members will be given roles, such as shooting water or air at contestants or controlling some of the obstacles on stage.
Winners will receive prizes and some contestants may be given the chance to appear on the NBC show, Trowbridge said.
The Fear Factor Live attraction is an example of corporate synergy from NBC's purchase of Universal in 2003.
"We've always looked at Fear Factor as kind of a theme park ride on television," NBC Universal Television Group chief Jeff Zucker said. "It made sense to extend that brand into the theme parks."
Morphing a TV show into a theme park attraction has been done before. Walt Disney Co. turned the ABC quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire into an audience participation show at some of its parks. And Universal has turned such movies as Backdraft and Shrek into theme park fare.
So far, NBC has no plans to turn any of its other TV shows into attractions.
"If this one works, maybe someone will be saying "You're Fired' at a theme park," Zucker joked, referring to the Donald Trump show The Apprentice .
