About a year ago Marvel announced that they were building a theme park in Dubai in partnership with the real estate company Al Ahli Group; the park was targeted to open in 2011. Now they’ve announced that they’ve switched dance partners — Tatweer, another United Arab Emirate-based real estate group, has signed a deal with them. The park is now set to open in 2012.

The park will be part of a larger “entertainment destination” called Dubailand, which also has deals in place with Dreamworks Animation and Universal Studios.

Other properties are getting into the act as well; the Associated Press offers a broader look at the recent flock of enteratinment properties headed to the UAE “to build what could become the world’s largest theme park playground:”

Investors, studios and park operators are all aiming to cash in on what some observers call the Middle East’s decades-long fascination with American culture. Hollywood movies are popular in the region, and Western fashions are hot commodities among residents who travel abroad.

“On the one hand, they hate America. On the other hand they love America to the bone,” said Michael Izady, an expert on Middle East culture who reaches history at Pace University in New York.

The theme park market is open — with no major facilities currently operating in the Middle East.

The projects are no-brainers for the entertainment companies that have jumped at what amounts to free brand expansions with no capital at risk. Few details have been provided about the deals, which entertainment companies simply describe as licensing arrangements for intellectual property and help on designing the parks and attractions, with no mention of possible royalty payments.

The article goes on to say that the UAE government wants to more than double the number of tourists to their country by 2015. Other studios and properties mentioned include Warner Bros. and the DC stable, as wellas Anheuser-Busch’s SeaWorld. Absent from the list, though, is Disney.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 7:12 am and is filed under DC Comics, Marvel, Movies, News & Views, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.