I don't generally indulge in rumors on my site, but my friends over at Screamscape.com (who specialize in theme park rumors) have reliable sources backing up the story that Universal Studios Florida will be shutting down the Back to the Future attraction and replacing it with one themed to the animated TV show, "The Simpsons." Plans apparently call for phasing out Back to the Future by the end of the summer and retrofitting the building's motion simulator theaters to feature The Simpsons in 2007. The attraction may debut to coincide with the release of a Simpsons feature film scheduled to be released at the end of July next year. There's been no word, official or otherwise, about the fate of the Back to the Future attractions at Universal Studios parks in Hollywood and Japan. The Back to the Future ride, which debuted in 1991, was instrumental in helping to turn Universal Studios Florida around. The park had opened a year earlier and was riddled with mechanical breakdowns, ride failures, and other King Kong-sized problems. Back to the Future gave it an E-Ticket ride with plenty of wow factor and served as a rallying point for the nascent park. While it was one of the first high-profile motion-simulator attractions, it has been showing its age recently.

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