The Night at the Museum franchise was quite successful for 20th Century Fox, but the franchise hasn’t seen a new entry in the franchise since Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb in 2014. Before that film hit theaters it appears the studio had some big plans for expanding the franchise into a theme park ride, as some concept art has been revealed for the project courtesy of Legacy Entertainment. The concept artwork is from 2010, and takes advantage of the museum theme in a big way, though it unfortunately never came to fruition (via Theme Park University).
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In the concept art, you can see the ride moving a group of passengers from exhibit to exhibit as they experience everything from a charging and roaring T-Rex skeleton come to life in front of them to a group of penguins in their natural frozen habitat, and the effects coming off of the latter experience suggest you would have additional real-life effects here to blast cold air or perhaps even snow around this part of the ride.
As mentioned previously, these were done in 2010, and according to Theme Park University, it appears that this was for a major theme park chain that didn’t have the rights to the franchise just yet. They were attempting to snag them though, and these might have been in support of that attempt to get the studio to license the rights.
That never came to pass, and this is just concept art, so no physical ride was ever constructed. If the studio had shown interest or greenlighted development, we might have seen more designs.
The franchise has brought in over $1.3 billion worldwide and resulted in three films. It was originally owned by 20th Century Fox, but thanks to the big deal with Disney, the franchise is now under Disney’s umbrella. While a ride at a Disney park seems unlikely at this point, that could change down the line, as Disney is rebooting Night at the Museum for Disney+, saying they are reimagining it for a new generation. They are doing the same for Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Home Alone as well.
