Friday, October 7, 2011

Take a Look at Paramount Park Spain



Paramount might have had no interest in staying in the theme park business in North America, but they certainly have no problem licensing out their properties and helping design a proposed new park to be build in Alhama de Murcia, Spain.

While most of the news of the park sounds like the bulldozers are already working, the company behind the plan is actually looking for investors to bring in 50% of the roughly $1.5 billion project, which is why the fancy media release was issued - but we will get to that.  It has been said that if funding is received quickly, the park could open as soon as 2015.

That large cost figure is not only for the park, however, as a large "lifestyle center" is also planned, with shopping, office space, almost 10 different hotels, a casino, etc.


If built - stressing the if at this point - the park would be the first branded Paramount park in Europe, and would play off the legendary film titles under the Paramount brand.  It is also being touted as Spain's first fully immersive theme park - not sure how well that is sitting with other Spanish parks such as PortAventura, Parque Warner Madrid, and Terra Mitica.


The developers describe Paramount Park Spain as being "designed with exciting state-of-the-art technologies, to include over 30 attractions designed to appeal to a broad spectrum of ages and interests."  Two of the overall development's themed hotels will be located directly adjacent to the theme park.


After the fancy looking entrance area guests would find themselves in the Paramount Promenade, mostly filled with shops and food locations.  This serves as a 'main street' but also features one attraction named Paramount Live.


Paramount Live is a musical review that features the "best rock and roll of the Paramount movies."  At the end of the Paramount Promenade and to the left is Adventure City, the park's first large themed area.


Adventure City has a bit of a generic theme, but that allows it to host several attractions that might not normally fit together.  Included are some Grease Lightnin' Bumper Cars, and also a Titanic exhibit.  Not a ride mind you, but this exhibition "will recreate the wonderful ocean liner that tragically crashed with an iceberg through all types of souvenirs, special effects and showings."

A restaurant in the area, the Osteria Corleone, will take guests into the time when the Godfather ruled in this Italian themed eatery.


The big attraction in Adventure City will certainly be the Mission Impossible ride.  The ride will use 3-D movies with 4-D sets to create a ride experience that leaves guests feeling as if they were a part of the movie.


Some definite comparisons to Spiderman at Islands of Adventure look like they could be made here.  Above we see a scene of the ride, with the car at the bottom (you can only see riders' heads) looking at what would probably be a film screen with physical sets around them.


To further enforce the Spiderman comparison I grabbed this shot of the car for the ride - looks very much like a simulator on a track to me!  Promising, though - these rides (while limited in quantity in the world) are usually quite good.

That's all I have time for now, but we'll look at the rest of the park soon.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I spy an Intamin Mega-Lite in the concept artwork! :)

Chris said...

Sure does seem to be the realization of the long term vision that Paramount had for their U.S. parks! Very neat art work.