Funny enough, before or during the most recent episode of Theme Park Talk,
@Jonathan dropped that and I was surprisingly off-guard.
If I had to guess, it could be more of who was owning Universal back then, as they probably had to go lower of a budget for a replacement. Hell, look at what some have said for the case of Mummy, and that it was going to go outside the soundstage back I believe in the IU Podcast with Mike Sington.