It’s not every day that we see a major, innovative, and immersive new theme park open in the United States. That makes sense. For at least the last few decades, the American theme park market has left behind a “growth” phase and settled into a “maturing” phase. Like a sponge that can’t hold even one more drop of water, many analysts see the theme park landscape of North America as “full.” (For example, 2025’s Epic Universe will be the first major, destination park in the country since 2001’s California Adventure.)
But elsewhere, it’s a very different story. Across the world, brand new parks – many designed and built by the best in the business, rooted right here in America – are opening to brand new audiences. Today, we want to highlight one and the industry shifts that brought it to life. Join us as we set the stage for Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi and highlight some of the incredible attractions in this 21st century park!
The Middle East Movement
The entertainment industry’s gravitation to the Middle East might be unexpected at first glance. Though Disney and Universal have made splashy entries into new Asian markets (with 21st century resorts in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Beijing), the answer there was obvious: population. Disney’s two American resorts service a country with roughly 330 million people, whereas China’s population tops 1.4 billion – four times as many, and with a rapidly-evolving Middle Class looking for the kind of entertainment to fill their leisure time and take their expendable income that Americans first experienced in the ‘50s.
The case in the Middle East is different. The United Arab Emirates – home to the hot market cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi – has a national population of only 9 million people… approximately equivalent to the population of New York City. So the sudden influx of entertainment in the UAE isn’t so much about reaching a newly-accessible population as it is something with an equal amount of potential: tourism.
Arabian Peninsula countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have launched an all-out media blitz to reposition their industries as innovative; their cultures, progressive; their cities, destinations!
The very fact that you’ve heard of Dubai and Abu Dhabi – and that they might conjure visions of art deco buildings, fountain shows in crystal lagoons, the world’s tallest building, man-made islands, water slides, and yes, theme parks – shows that the UAE’s marketing plan is working. These two cities – about an hour’s drive from one another, and both on the Persian Gulf – are the the midst of a reimagining meant to elevate them as “global cities” on par with New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Cape Town, and Hong Kong.
With nearly limitless land in the deserts surrounding their modern metropolises and limitless money from the bountiful oil industry, there’s no limit to what the Middle East can finance. It makes sense that theme parks are a massive part of that push, and that international entertainment brands are eager to license their properties for introduction.
Is it working? Well…
Bad Timing
In the initial wave of projects announced for Dubai’s Dubailand complex and Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island, there were some very, very big dreams.
In February 2008, Busch Entertainment (then-owners of SeaWorld) announced that they would open a multi-park resort complex called Worlds of Discovery in Dubai, with the iconic Palm Jebel Ali (a man-made archipelago of palm-shaped islands) gaining an orca-shaped island as its crown. That whale-shaped island would contain a SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Discovery Cove, and Aquatica waterpark, all scheduled to open in 2012.
A month later in March 2008, Six Flags Dubailand was announced with a planned 2011 opening. (The project was re-announced in 2016.) Melding Six Flags thrills with big budget theming, this “next generation” thrill park would’ve been a flagship of the company.
And so it went for a (pre-Disney) Marvel Super Hero Theme Park theme park announced in 2007, a DreamWorks Theme Park, an Arabian Legend Theme Park, and a whole park dedicated to a regional children’s show called Freej (the equivalent of a Peppa Pig World, you might say), each earmarked for Dubailand.
Three months after that in July 2008, Universal Studios Dubailand was made official. With “Hollywood,” “New York,” “Surf City,” “Epic Adventures,” and “Legendary Heroes” areas, the new park was promised by a copy of its iconic art deco archway being built on the desert parcel it would occupy… a tease of what was to come.
The trick for each big-brand theme park is simple: neither Busch Entertainment, Six Flags, Universal, Marvel, nor DreamWorks would really be on the hook for designing, owning, or operating the parks that bore their name. Instead, each would simply license its brands, logos, characters, and likenesses to deep-pocketed Middle Eastern developers… who, of course, would agree to stick to the style guides, quality checks, and approvals needed to borrow from entertainment industry giants.
To do that, the developers helming and funding each project turned not inward, but to the experts at design and manufacturing firms back in the United States, hiring companies to develop the attractions for their new parks. If it had all come together, Dubailand really could’ve been the next Walt Disney World; an international destination of 21st century parks underwritten by limitless budgets, designed by industry experts, and carrying big name brands. Surely, the region would top the “Bucket Lists” of coaster and dark ride enthusiasts…
But none of it came to pass. At least, not in its expected form. The wave of announcements for Dubailand and other Middle Eastern projects happened to fall just before the start of the 2008 “Great Recession,” which tanked global economies and led to years of tourism downturn.
Projects across the industry stalled. The Dubailand project was paused, and one-by-one, Six Flags, Universal, Marvel, DreamWorks, and other big name projects went silent and then dropped out altogether… Both Dubailand (above) and the Palm Jebel Ali (visible on Google Maps) remain largely undeveloped and vacant to this day. The lofty dreams of turning the Middle East into a global theme park hub seemed to come to an end. But in reality, they were only slowed.
Sure, the wave of continuous announcements-and-abandonments in the Middle East throughout the 2010s became a sort of in-joke among industry observers. “I’ll believe it when I see it” was the response to every on-again-off-again announcement. That’s not to say that the Middle East was written off as a potential new centerpiece for theme park innovation. Some projects did make it across the finish line…
The Next Evolution
Dubai
The dreamed-of Dubailand was essentially canceled, but about 20 minutes from the deserted desert campus arose Dubai Parks & Resorts in 2016 – a smaller multi-park destination that includes Bollywood Parks Dubai (an entertainment-focused park celebrating the Bollywood Hindi film industry) and LEGOLAND Dubai.
Online, though, much attention has been focused on MotionGate Dubai – a “studio park” with lands themed to Columbia Pictures (a Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs raft ride, an infamous Hotel Transylvania dark ride, and a Green Hornet coaster), Lionsgate (a Hunger Games mini-land complete with simulator and coaster, a John Wick ride, and a Step Up stage show), and an indoor DreamWorks land (a Shrek dark ride, a Kung Fu Panda simulator, and a How To Train Your Dragon ride).
The same year and about 30 minutes away, the high-profile IMG Worlds of Adventure indoor theme park opened, with several original lands as well as realms dedicated to big-money licensings of Cartoon Network and Marvel. (The park’s Avengers: Battle of Ultron ride may not quite be on the level of the Modern Marvel: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, but it’s an impressive outing for a non-Disney park… especially compared to Web-Slingers.)
Abu Dhabi
An hour south in Abu Dhabi, a similarly-scaled-back collection of parks has risen on Yas Island – a mixed use, master-planned development of theme parks, marinas, shopping malls, fountain shows, entertainment, and more. Ferrari World includes the world’s fastest roller coaster and a SCOOP-based dark ride; Yas Waterworld is considered among the best water parks on Earth; even a new SeaWorld Abu Dhabi is en route for a 2022 opening (though it’s an entirely-indoor facility as opposed to a whale-shaped island; what has not changed is that SeaWorld Parks have merely licensed the brand and will neither own nor directly operate the park).
Even if dreams of Dubailand never came to be, between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, there really is the start of a collection of parks exceeding the scope of Central Florida! But to our thinking, just one park really manages to approach the quality Disney and Universal fans have come to expect…
Warner Bros. World
In 2018, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi opened on Yas Island, near Ferrari World. The 1.65 million square foot indoor property clocks in as the world’s largest indoor theme park. Developed and owned by the Miral Asset Management company and largely designed by the Thinkwell Group in Los Angeles, the project is surely one of the largest theme parks undertaken in the Middle East… and arguably, it’s also the best.
It’s not the first theme park to use the Warner Bros. name – at one time, Warner Bros. Movie World parks existed in Germany, Australia and Spain (though only Australia’s park retains the licensing) and Warner’s one-time ownership and continued partnership with Six Flags keeps DC Heroes and Looney Tunes as theme park staples across the U.S.
But the Abu Dhabi park is a reboot of the concept. Unlike the usual treatment of Warner IP (namely, “label-slapped” roller coasters), Warner Bros. World really is a proper theme park, pulling serious punches with the studios’ enviable collection of IPs with a formula much more “Universal” than “Six Flags.”
Passing through a golden portal beneath a post-modern waterpower, guests enter into a fully-enclosed theme park packed with impressive environments, unexpected detail, clever ride systems, and some of the most thoughtful and innovative use of DC Heroes and Looney Tunes we’ve seen. There’s a whole lot to discover in this very cool theme park, so let’s take a peek…
Warner Bros. Plaza
Proceeding past the park’s lobby, guests emerge in the park’s central hub – Warner Bros. Plaza. It’s a celebration of Hollywood packed with restaurants and shops, as well as inviting fountains and gardens. The central space serves as a performance venue for the park. But it also introduces an important design trick.
Yes, Warner Bros. World is completely enclosed – practically a necessity in Abu Dhabi, where summer highs regularly reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit. (Winter highs typically top 70 or 80 degrees, too.) But it’s not necessarily one gigantic, echoing facility. Warner Bros. Plaza is self-contained, with its own “sky” of dreamy, sunset clouds and walls that isolate it from the rest of the gargantuan facility.
From Warner Bros. Plaza, four portal diverge: to the southwest, an art deco archway to Metropolis; to the northwest, a gothic facade leading to the alleys of Gotham City; to the northeast, the ACME Corporation factory, connecting to Cartoon Junction, and to the southeast, an enclosed mall leading to the land that’ll serve as the start of our counterclockwise tour…
Bedrock
Proceeding counterclockwise around the park, guests first enter Bedrock – the prehistoric town from the The Flintstones. Yes, it’s worth remembering that Warner Bros. absorbed the historic and beloved animation studio Hanna-Barbera in 2002, adding mid-century American icons like The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Josie & The Pussycats, Johnny Quest, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Top Cat, The Smurfs, and of course, Scooby-Doo to their content libraries.
In Bedrock, the perpetual dusk of Warner Bros. Plaza gives way to a wraparound cartoon-blue sky, lit by flat, fluffy white animated cloud fixtures above. Guests can dine on Bronto Burgers and Mammoth Munchies, or shop at the Bedrock Boutique.
But of course, the highlight is the Flintstones Bedrock River Adventure, visible from the park only as its prehistoric boats plunge out of cavern and drift around a rocky peak of cascading waterfalls and geysers. The ride itself (above) is simple, but includes some wonderful gags and set-ups, a mid-ride turntable, and beautiful lighting and scenic design.
Landed in the Bedrock desert is The Jetsons Cosmic Orbiter – a “Dumbo” style family spinning ride – and the Marvin the Martian Crater Crashers bumper cars. The two futuristic, space-y family flat rides are drawn from two different universes (Hanna Barbera and Looney Tunes), but they serve as the perfect transition to a second desert environment…
Dynamite Gulch
With the prehistoric, bulbous rocks of Bedrock becoming a stylized, Wild West mountain town wrapped in cliffs, the park’s main path becomes a two-lane desert highway into Dynamite Gulch. The park’s second land recalls the vast deserts traversed by the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote in classic Looney Tunes shorts. Yosemite Sam’s Rootin’ Tootin’ Gas Station serves as the land’s retail space, but most eyes are turned skyward.
Named after the 1949 short that served as Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner’s premier, Fast & Furry-ous sees guests strap into inverted roller coaster trains (affixed with genuine ACME rockets), joining Wile E. in pursuit of the lightning-fast desert bird once more. In addition to clever nods to the coyote’s failed catch attempts littering the desert caves of the queue, the ride includes a brief dark ride scene as it climbs the lift hill, as well as several blink-and-you’ll-miss-it vignettes as it weaves and races around lopsided cartoon hoodoos.
The custom, Intamin-made family coaster goes well above the standard off-the-shelf ride you might expect. And by reaching speeds of 30 miles per hour, it’s inarguably both more fast and more furious than a certain ride at Universal Studios Florida… Anyway, Bedrock and Dynamite Gulch together create a sort of desert-stylized introduction to Warner Bros. animation archive… but it really comes together in the next land.
Cartoon Junction
The rocky flat backdrop of Dynamite Gulch paints itself into rolling, grassy hills as we enter Cartoon Junction. Somewhat like a “Mickey’s Toontown,” Cartoon Junction serves as a catch-all for the best of Warner Bros. animation. Centered around the Cartoon Junction Carousel, the stylized little town square brings unlikely companions together.
Serving as a portal into the land from the Warner Bros. Plaza hub is the ACME Factory, an enclosed mini-land just for very young guests. It includes a factory playground as well as three mini-flat-rides: the Daffy Jet-Propelled Pogo Stick frog-hopper drop ride, the Tweet Wild Wockets mini-Dumbo, and the Wild Racing with Taz mini-Whip ride.
Right on the town square is a creepy old manor – home to Scooby-Doo: The Museum of Mysteries. Scooby Doo has had his fair share of dark rides across the world (thanks to Sally Corp.’s licensing of the character for blaster rides that once spread across Paramount and even some Six Flags parks). But Museum of Mysteries uses trackless dark ride technology. Yes, the ride is fairly simple in its execution, but it’s a cute use of the character, and with three spots along the ride’s course where the vehicles separate and encounter unique scenes.
Tom & Jerry Swiss Cheese Spin is another of the land’s E-Tickets. After one of the best queues in the park tours guests through a perfect mid-century cartoon home, guests suddenly find themselves “shrunk” to the size of a mouse, walking through the spaces between walls. There, they board a spinning family coaster that swerves and spirals through a kitchen in chaos, caught right between Tom and Jerry.
The land’s highlight, though, has to be Ani-Mayhem. Something like a cross between a trackless dark ride, a standard laser-blasting dark ride, and Midway Mania, the ride sees guests step into the swanky offices of the ACME Corporation, where they’re armed with ACME scanners and set loose into the warehouse to begin delivering packages. Combining physical sets and targets with digital ones, the ride sends guests through Cartoon Junction, Dynamite Gulch, Warner Bros. Plaza, and even to the moon before returning with a classic “That’s All, Folks!”
Together, Bedrock, Dynamite Gulch, and Cartoon Junction offer five significant headliners (Bedrock River Adventure, Fast and Furry-ous, Museum of Mysteries, Swiss Cheese Spin, and Ani-Mayhem) as well as six supporting flat rides. But the worlds of cartoon daylight disappear as our counterclockwise tour continues, leading to the dark underbelly of Warner Bros. World… Read on…
The entire “right” side of Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi celebrates two of the most legendary animation properties in history – Hanna Barbera and the Looney Tunes. But as guests proceed on a counterclockwise tour of the park, the rolling hills that serve as the backdrop for Cartoon Junction are joined by a distant cityscape, and as guests pass into it, they’re stepping into the park’s “left” side, where things get a little more serious.
Gotham City
Stylized as the gritty underworld reigned over by Batman, Gotham City sees the sun set on the perpetual daylight of Cartoon Junction. Instead, it’s a dark and sinister cityscape of gothic skyscrapers and villanous aims.
For example, guests entering from Cartoon Junction step into Gotham’s industrial wharf, where a worn-out warehouse houses The Riddler’s Revolution – a spinning Disk-o coaster that spirals out of a smashed warehouse wall, glowing with question marks, before reversing back into the foggy darkness. (Though it’s an “off-the-shelf” ride, the placement and “show” around it make this one of the world’s best.)
Down a dark alley stands Scarecrow Scare Raid, a chaotic “Air Ride” ride where guests are piloted through wild inversions set against the city’s skyline.
A true hidden gem is the Joker’s Funhouse, a legitimate walkthrough dark ride experience that includes a mirror maze, a hall of mirrors, an inverted room, moving walkways, a maze of money sacks, undulating ladders, rollers, and slides all themed to different villains’ traps. (Several moments inside would never be brought to life in the litigous United States, where a trip or a slip could lead to multi-million dollar settlements!)
But the most impressive attraction in the land (and probably the whole park) must be Batman: Knight Flight. An incredibly rare use of the same KUKA Robo Arm ride system that powers Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, the dark ride is a spectacular combination of physical sets with the same kind of projection dome simulators Forbidden Journey is known for. By any measure, Knight Flight would easily rank among the best modern dark rides on Earth, with a surprising sense of spatial consistency that even Forbidden Journey lacks!
But there’s still one more realm of Warner Bros. World to explore…
Metropolis
The “light” counterpart to Batman’s dark and gothic world, the art deco downtown of Metropolis is a sight to behold, even scaled to fit an indoor theme park. Guests can eat at Jitters Coffee & Snacks, inside or al fresco at Big Belly Burger diner; shop at the Daily Planet Newstand, or visit Zatanna Books and Magical Curiosities.
But of course, most of us would visit Metropolis looking for action-packed encounters with Superman and friends, and that’s on the menu, too.
Along its entryway from Gotham is the Metropolis Observatory – home to Green Lantern: Galactic Odyssey. The ride cleverly sees a typical planetarium show evolve into a cross-space journey using a “flying theater” ride system (reminiscent of Disney’s Soarin’).
Teen Titans Training Academy is another “never-in-America” attraction that includes a high ropes course, ziplines, and climbing walls wrapped in a “hero training” aesthetic.
Superman 360: Battle for Metropolis is an unlikely anchor for the iconic hero: a return of “CircleVision” style film, essentially using a spherical Daily Planet drone to bring guests along for a seamless surround-screen rescue with Superman.
But it all comes together on Justice League: Warworld Attacks. The land’s anchor, it’s a SCOOP-based dark ride that uses the same ride system and formula as Universal’s fabled Modern Marvel: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, thrusting guests into the comic book world. (And unlike many Spider-Man imitators, Justice Leage strikes a healthy balance between physical sets and screens.
It’s a fitting last E-Ticket to bring the park’s tour to a close, because it shows that Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi manages to use some of the industry’s leading ride systems in innovative, clever adaptations. But more to the point, it’s an example of how seriously impressive the investment in this park is…
The End
Think about it… A log flume, three family coasters, a trackless dark ride, an interactive dark ride, a thrilling, spinning Disko, a walkthrough fun house, a KUKA Robo Arm dark ride, a flying theater, a high ropes course, a seamless 360-degree attraction, and a SCOOP-style dark ride, plus a dozen flat rides from family-friendly to thrilling and wild. On its face, wouldn’t that give Warner Bros. World one of the strongest ride lineups out there? A modern, master-planned cast of attractions that (if we’re being honest) exceeds the quantity, diversity, and capacity of Hollywood Studios, EPCOT, or Animal Kingdom’s…
Sure, Warner Bros. World plays by different rules than a Disney Park, and it would be unfair to hold it to the standards of major Orlando players. But in the rapidly-expanding industry of the Middle East, there’s no question that Warner Bros. World is a leader. It’s a beautiful and lovingly-created park designed by some of the industry’s best creatives, and that commitment to quality shows.
In other words, it’s worth putting Warner Bros. World on your bucket list… and seeing how its precedent influences parks closer to home, too…
