World's largest indoor theme park in Dubai to star Marvel's Iron Man, Spider-Man and the Hulk

Arabian Travel Market: Theme park in Dubailand development will include 17 themed rides many of which will be based around the Marvel comic heroes and characters from Cartoon Network.

Iron Man, one of the most widely known superheroes, helped organise The Avengers that include Spider-Man and the Hulk. Courtesy Paramount Pictures
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Ilyas and Mustafa Galadari plan to open the world's largest indoor theme park in Dubai in December this year with a little help from the likes of Spider-Man, the Hulk and Ben10.

The Galadari brothers, who own the UAE franchise rights to brands such as Baskin Robbins and the Inter-Continental Hotel chain as well as their IMG Group, announced yesterday that the new 1.5 million square foot theme park will be branded as IMG Worlds of Adventure.

The park on Mohammed bin Zayed Road will be located in the City of Arabia district forming part of Dubai Properties Group's sprawling Dubailand scheme on the edge of the city. It will include themed rides many of which will be based around the Marvel comic heroes and characters from Cartoon Network.

Rides in the four-zone park will include a electromagnetic super fast roller-coaster which travels outside the building and includes more twists and turns than the one in Abu Dhabi's Ferrari World.

A so-called 5D cinema will add effects such as smell, wind and motion to the 3D Imax style cinema experience.

The brothers were on hand yesterday with an array of actors dressed as super heroes at the opening of the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai to display their concept to Sheikh Mohammed.

"We will be the largest indoor entertainment park in the world," Adam Alexander Page, vice president for marketing at City of Arabia told The National.

"We're not comparing ourselves to Ferrari World in any way shape or form but as an indoor entertainment centre we will be bigger. From one side of the park to the other I think in a straight line it will be approximately 530 metres. It will be massive."

IMG declined to disclose the cost of building the theme park but announced last year it had raised financing from Al Hilal Bank and Mashreq to fund the project.

The park will have a capacity to accommodate 20,000 people and is hoping to attract more than 10,000 visitors per day. IMG also intends to include conference facilities to attract corporate events to the park.

IMG said that work on a vast space frame roof was currently in progress and structural columns are now in place.

The news comes as a boost for the project which when known as the City of Arabia scheme, was put on hold for years. It had originally been due to open in 2011 and was due to include the world's largest shopping mall and a dinosaur theme park.

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