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Part movie, part arcade, Marvel Experience coming to the Linc

There's a would-be superhero lurking in lots of us. "The Marvel Experience" hopes to exploit that potential in its Philadelphia engagement at Lincoln Financial Field from June 24 to July 5.

Recruits young and old are tasked to help piece together the Super Adaptoid with touch screen monitors. (File photo)
Recruits young and old are tasked to help piece together the Super Adaptoid with touch screen monitors. (File photo)Read more

There's a would-be superhero lurking in lots of us. "The Marvel Experience" hopes to exploit that potential in its Philadelphia engagement at Lincoln Financial Field from June 24 to July 5.

This first-of-a-kind, highly interactive event is part movie, part electronic arcade and Comic-Con gathering. It aims no less than to reshape touring entertainment for the 21st century. The goal is to please a multimedia, seen-it-all audience that craves to live in the moment.

"This isn't a static, museum-style exhibit," said the project's spark plug, Doug Schaer, of Hero Ventures. "The idea is to literally drop you into a fully immersive, movie-length adventure. We take you on the ride."

Thanks to a "seven-figure" licensing deal with Marvel Entertainment L.L.C., this new-gen happening boasts even more comic book superheroes - 20-plus - than fans see in top-grossing ($1.5 billion, each) Avengers movies.

Recruits - that's you - sign in for $24.50 to $44.50 a head at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Command Center for training and combat alongside Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Hulk, She-Hulk, Iron Man, and their sidekicks. All to fight the evil forces of Hydra, intent on - what else? - world domination.

The mission is laid out early in 25 minutes of original video scripted and animated onto numerous big screens by veterans of Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters.

And guiding the move-through-adventure is Jerry Reese, a film director whose credits include 16 transporting "trans-media" Disney theme park attractions.

Recruits hop into the picture with holographic and "augmented reality" trickery, through massive multi-player video gaming challenges and in sweat-making physical feats such as racing up a motorized Climbing Wall to keep pace with Spidey.

Even hotter, say past "recruits," are a first-ever 360-degree 3D film playing inside and all around a giant 80-foot-tall domed tent. And a dynamic, 4D-motion ride that combines 3D film with physical effects such as wind in riders' face, recalling the best seated transporters at Disney and Universal theme parks.

"Ours is the first large-scale" - 150+ seats - "high-quality ride ever taken onto the road," Schaer said. "So experiencing this one doesn't cost a family $3,000 to get there. Nor do we make you suffer in a waiting line for two hours. We offer appointment ticketing, on the half-hour, then stagger the flow of the crowd through the two-hour experience, to avoid or lessen that kind of frustration."

It was notions like that - we'll bring the amusement park to you - that won the Marvel Experience serious funding from the likes of Michael Cohl, producer of Rolling Stones mega-tours and the Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark Broadway musical, Walt Disney's grand-nephew Roy P. Disney, sports tycoon Steve Tisch, and NBA great Earvin "Magic" Johnson. Trade reports pegged the building cost at $16.5 million and an overall budget of $30 million. The latter includes a cushion to absorb losses until this spectacle gains its footing.

The Marvel Experience is very much a work in progress; its Philly opening was re-set last week, pushed back six days - to Wednesday - for "necessary technical enhancements," explained a show representative.

"Philadelphia really qualifies as our major re-launch," Schaer said. It comes after three multi-week engagements at the end of 2014 and in early 2015 in Phoenix, Dallas, and San Diego that met with mixed reviews and lackluster attendance.

The team then took a few months off to rethink the adventure, both for artistic sake and to shave operating costs, initially running over $2 million per visited town.

"Phoenix reviewers didn't understand we were in shakedown cruise mode," Schaer said, "and in California our timing was bad. We opened just when the new school term was starting."

Also problematic was the original Cirque Du Soleil-style set-up on fairgrounds, "bringing everything with us - seven climate-controlled tents, catering, bathrooms, and power generators."

Here, schools are newly closed and summer camps (big on field trips) are starting up. And by moving into a stadium such as the Linc, "we can use their facilities - placing a lot of the experience in lobbies and concourses, before moving groups out to the two big tents on the field."

For the revamped Marvel Experience, filmic segments have been linked more tightly, and stations at the most popular participatory challenges have risen in number.

But one touted piece of tech has "temporarily" been put on hold - an RFID (radio frequency tracking) smart wrist band to follow and award points to each user along his or her personal journey.

"It didn't work as well as anticipated," Schaer admitted. "We're still giving each recruit one as a 'fremium,' " but it doesn't have any ongoing function.

Some industry players think that the Marvel Experience is on to something big. "It's the way theme-park attractions are going - with in-your-face type experiences," said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services in Cincinnati.

215-854-5960@JTakiff