The idea of Dennis Nordman, who never needed a licensed property to make a good game out of it, and Zofia Ryan on the mechanics working together has me rather excited for what's coming out of AP soon.

Dr. Dude builds a time machine and travels from 1990 to make the current day totally rad like it used to be. This has potential.

If I'm not mistaken, any WMS-era patents on playfield toys/features that came out of Oursler/Bil-Ryan collaborations in the 90s are expired now. That only further helps. After nearly 30 years, that floating Mist ball in BSD still looks cool.

AP paid that a bit of tribute already with the Crash multiball magnet at the top of the orbit on HW.

Beetlejuice probably isn't going to be a tall order as far as buying licenses goes, and as licenses go that in particular seems right up Mr. Nordman's alley.

One thing about Nordman games is they always nail the concept of theme integration, whether it's licensed or not. And some of the best examples are non-licensed, or are technically licenses but are more abstract in nature (like Elvira or the Indianapolis 500) than a movie or superhero franchise with a storyline.
Elvira's House of Horrors may be one of the best of all in this area.

There isn't a storyline made by someone else that you're trying to tie into a pinball game. It's a little more freeform and less restricting in how a game can be designed. Nordman has talked about this in interviews.

Dr. Dude's EXcellent Time Machine. Having achieved maximum super-dudeness, the Doctor went to work on a new invention to make himself the coolest dude of all time.

But when he makes it to the 2020s, there's not much coolness to be found. The socially distanced pandemic age is totally lame, he realizes, and he decides to stay and show a new generation how to put their phones away and party again.
Perfect theme for locations with pinball reopening, and social/nightlife returning to normal.

Whatever IP rights had to be obtained for Steve Ritchie to make a new Black Knight game at Stern would be the extent of licensing.

It sounds like what JB is doing is becoming a contract designer and is free to design games for any company, including AP.
Balcer has a track record with getting two new, post-WMS pinball makers off the ground with games in production. He's probably the first guy I'd call if I woke up a billionaire tomorrow and decided to start a pinball company.

Contract-building homebrew pins and raising a much-needed new generation of game designers. The future of pinball is being built in Palatine.

The facility definitely appeared big enough to me to have three lines as described.