Gary Goddard is not the kind of guy that rattles easily. He’s been in the entertainment business for basically his entire life, so he knows what he does best. But when James Cameron walks in the room to talk about his baby, “The Terminator,” even the most confident person’s palms can get a little moist.

Goddard is the founder of Gary Goddard Entertainment, a consultant and design company based in Beverly Hills, California. He is also the creative force behind some of the amusement industry’s most popular attractions, including “The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man” at Universal’s Islands of Adventure and “Terminator 2: 3-D” at Universal Orlando in Florida.

In “T2: 3-D,” guests experience the “Terminator” mythology with all of their senses, as live actors synchronize with an all-new film shown in 3-D on three giant screens inside a large theater. Goddard didn’t want to go halfway in any aspect of the attraction, so for the 3-D film he didn’t want some knockoffs pretending to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, or the other stars of the “Terminator” films.

In order to get those stars involved in the project, though, Goddard knew he needed Cameron, the Oscar-winning director who came up with the “Terminator” mythology in the first place.

So once Goddard had the attraction mapped out—including plot, storyboards, etc.—a meeting was set up for Goddard, Cameron, and various Universal executives. “I was never really nervous until that moment,” says Goddard, thinking back on seeing Cameron walk through the door. “It was realizing, ‘I’m now going to pitch this guy his own mythology.’ It didn’t really hit me until he was right there. … I get to the end, and there’s silence. Jim’s looking at the boards—he’s sittin’ there and we’re sittin’ there—and it’s awkward.”

Goddard started to say something more—anything to break the silent, uncomfortable moment—but Cameron waved him off; he was still considering the project. Çameron stood up and looked at the storyboards a little closer and, Goddard recalls, finally says, “Well, this is really good. You got it. On the drive over here I was fully prepared to come in here and tell you guys that whatever you’re planning, it stinks. But I love this—this is a great concept. … Not that I can’t make it a little better.”

“Getting Jim on board was most important,” Goddard says, reflecting back on the project a decade later. “He made it his mission to get Arnold and everyone else on board, which worked out great.”

“T2: 3-D” summarizes what Goddard calls “The Big Idea,” taking a project as far as it can go in order to maximize its potential. “You have to go through all the bad ideas to get to the good idea,” he says.

A Lifelong Entertainer
Goddard, who says he is “hovering around 50,” grew up in Santa Barbara, California, and developed a love for theme parks through regular visits to Disneyland. He started writing and directing stage shows in high school and continued honing his craft while majoring in theater and film at California Institute of the Arts, which Walt Disney helped found.

Upon graduation in 1974, Goddard was hired for a summer by Walt Disney World in Florida to work with Larry Billman in directing the new “Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue” dinner show at Pioneer Hall. Originally the show was only supposed to run for that summer, but it was such a smash success, Disney kept it running and Goddard was asked to remain on staff as the fulltime director. (The show is one of Walt Disney World’s most popular to this day.) Goddard was soon bumped up to Disney Imagineering (hired by Disney legend Marc Davis), bringing him back to his home state of California to work at the company’s headquarters.

After three years at Disney, though, Goddard was ready to strike out on his own. In 1977, he opened Gary Goddard Productions (which included a group of ex-Imagineers) on Sunset Boulevard in California. Although the company’s first official production was a stage show, Goddard’s work with Disney was well known in the amusement industry and projects started coming fast and furious. In 1981, he helped create “The Monster Plantation” at Six Flags Over Georgia, followed by “The Great Texas Longhorn Revue” at Six Flags Astroworld in 1982. That year would prove to be one of the most important in Goddard’s career, as he was brought in by Universal as a consultant for a recently opened “Dracula” show. Goddard told Universal the show just didn’t work, so it was eventually scrapped and Goddard was given the assignment to create an entirely new production based on Conan the Barbarian, a character made famous by Schwarzenegger’s films from that time. Goddard wrote and directed the new “Conan” show, which he says was a turning point for Universal’s live entertainment offerings, setting a new standard for the company.

It was during this period Goddard met one of the major influences in his life: The now-retired CEO of MCA Recreation Services Jay Stein. Stein and Goddard would see eye-to-eye on numerous projects covering more than a decade of pushing the envelope, leading to some of the most innovative attractions in the industry.

“Jay Stein never gets enough credit for being the Walt Disney after Walt Disney,” Goddard says.

Spidey Sense
Goddard credits Stein with having the vision and guts to champion challenging projects such as “T2: 3-D” and “The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man,” the latter opening in conjunction with Islands of Adventure (significant portions of which Goddard helped design) in 1999. “If not for Jay Stein, ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘T2: 3-D’ would have never happened, because Jay had to back me up,” Goddard says. “As it turned out, those are both the benchmarks for attractions to this day.”

Both utilize 4-D, which Goddard defines as real-time effects synchronous with video storytelling. “It’s all the things happening around you and to you,” he says. “You’re not really sure where the screen ends and where the effect begins—when it’s being done right.”

In “T2: 3-D,” for example, Goddard says people visit the attraction over and over trying to determine how in the world a real-life motorcycle seemingly jumps right into a movie screen. “Spider-Man,” which opened three years after “T2: 3-D,” was the first to incorporate 3-D into an actual ride; guests put on the 3-D glasses, then strap into eight-passenger fully-articulated vehicles that move through several rooms of video screens and special effects. When the Green Goblin throws one of his pumpkin bombs, a blast of fire explodes overhead; when Electro attacks, lights flash and the vehicle lurches as if struck. The ultimate thrill on “Spider- Man,” though, is the climactic web-swinging through New York City skyscrapers; your mind knows you’re not actually falling, but just try convincing your body of that fact.

Goddard brings a wide range of entertainment experience to the theme park industry, including film (1987’s “Masters of the Universe”), television (“Captain Power”), and theater (“Jesus Christ Superstar”). “I’m a writer and director at heart,” he says, so the story and the experience always comes first—then it’s just a matter of coming up with the best way to deliver that to the guests—“Creative leads, technical follows,” he says. In the cases of “Terminator” and “Spider-Man,” he says it took some convincing to get the 3-D elements into both of his beloved attractions, but he knew it was the only way to create the best possible experiences.

“A comic book wants to be in your face, and in our business, there’s only one way to be in your face—3-D,” he says, recalling one meeting where executives were wheeled through a makeshift “ride” of 3-D images, just to prove the idea of moving from one screen to another could work. “With 3-D, you can really make them feel like they’re in the ride.” 

Addition By Subtraction
Along with opening Gary Goddard Productions in 1977, Goddard was also partnered in two other businesses: a live stage production company run by Tony Christopher, and an animation studio with Phil Mendez. In 1980, those two companies and their respective partners came under the Gary Goddard Productions umbrella (Mendez would leave in 1982).

As GGP continued its rapid expansion throughout the early 1980s, Goddard felt the company was in need of a new moniker that would better suit its growing exploits and influence. Thus, Landmark Entertainment Group was born in 1985. Besides “T2: 3-D” and “Spider-Man” (as if those aren’t enough on their own), Landmark’s litany of hit attractions includes collaborating with Steven Spielberg on Universal’s “Jurassic Park” rides, the record-break-ing “Star Trek: The Experience” in Las Vegas, and “Hershey’s Really Big 3-D Show” at Hersheypark in Pennsylvania, as well as numerous successes in retail outlets, theme park design, live productions, and film and television.

By the turn of the century, though, Goddard was feeling ready for a change—he had had enough of running a company that at one point employed more than 400 people and included branches overseas. He wanted to get back to more film and TV, he says, and just pull back to focus on a handful of projects at a time. So in 1999, Goddard stepped down as head of Landmark, leaving the position to Christopher. He contin­ued to work on jobs that began during his tenure as president—including the “3-D Show” at Hershey—but also formed his current company, Gary Goddard Entertainment in 2001. Goddard then cut all ties to Landmark in 2002, opening his Beverly Hills offices for GGE.

As opposed to the hundreds of employees once under his supervision, there are just seven people working for GGE, people Goddard says are there to challenge him and push him to develop better and better attractions—no “yes men” allowed. “We work more like a movie studio now,” Goddard says, assembling a team of colleagues outside the company for individual projects. He cuts down on overhead by connecting with a revolving team of 15 or 20 other contractors like himself to work on a project-by-project basis.

Currently, Goddard is completing design work on the new Georgia Aquarium, which opens Nov. 23, as well as re-working the chocolate fac­tory tour ride at Hershey’s Chocolate World, set to open in spring 2006. He is also designing the new Hershey Museum, which will open in 2007. Entertainment projects in the hopper include ventures with James Cameron, white-hot film director Bryan Singer (of “X-Men” fame and 2006’s “Superman Returns”), and Broadway leg­end Andrew Lloyd Webber.

“ Gary provided some wonderful ‘out of the box’ thinking and inspiration to the Georgia Aquarium,” says Bernie Marcus, co-founder of The Home Depot and the aquarium’s benefactor. “He brought imagination and creativity to assist our team in developing entertaining strategies for telling the fantastic stories of the aquatic realm.”

Goddard continues to adhere to his “big idea,” which demands respecting guests’ intelligence by taking attractions “to the next level,” instead of seeking the lowest common denominator.

“I create, I think, the best attractions in the business. I feel pretty proud about that,” he says. “I create rides and shows that I would want to go see. Even though we only have 8 or 12 minutes to tell our story, somehow you have to tap into the root mythology and the people have to be instantly immersed in it.

“I want to create the next generation of brand­ed attractions,” he says. “Everyone has to leave going, ‘I just saw the most amazing thing!’ You have to engage people, grab them emotionally, and leave them changed.”