Dubai launches world’s first John Wick rollercoaster

A Dubai theme park will this month unveil the world’s first rollercoaster inspired by the John Wick movie franchise.

Film-mad amusement park Motiongate Dubai - which already has rides themed around The Hunger Games, Shrek, The Green Hornet and Kung-Fu Panda - will open the new ride, “John Wick: Open Contract” on 21 January.

Designed in collaboration with the film’s production team, the ride will enable visitors to enter an “immersive environment” on a set styled as the films’ Continental Hotel.

It then becomes a choose-your-own-adventure experience - you can opt to join the assassins hunting John Wick, or you can pick his team and help him escape.

With an exterior that looks a little like New York’s Flatiron building, the immersive ride has been designed to resemble a real hotel, with a red canopy at the front.

“I think what’s going to be amazing for fans is to have the opportunity to walk through the lobby of the Continental and experience different key moments in the settings that took place in the films,” says Jenefer Brown, executive vice president and head of global live, interactive and location-based entertainment at film studio Lionsgate.

“This attraction in particular is really about setting the story by putting people in this very immersive environment, and then you really get the action as you get on the coaster. It’s 10 stories high, so there’s definitely a level of intensity that’s befitting of the John Wick franchise that guests will experience.”

The first John Wick film was released in 2014, with two subsequent sequels.

Motiongate is also set to open the world’s fastest single-car spinning rollercoaster this year, themed on the film Now You See Me, which will reach speeds of up to 70km per hour.

On the Now You See Me High Roller Casino Coaster “guests will have the experience of walking through the casino and taking part in a heist that the Horsemen are in the midst of pulling off,” says Brown.