Warner Bros. has confirmed that the Harry Potter area in its Abu Dhabi theme park will be the only one in the world to feature recreations of the iconic Hogwarts Castle and Diagon Alley locations, as well as a Forbidden Forest.
Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi announced the expansion in 2022 but details about it have been thin on the ground since then. That all changed yesterday (1 September) when Warner Bros. released a teaser video (below) for the expansion at its annual 'Back to Hogwarts' event.
The video features the enchanted flying Ford Anglia car from the Harry Potter series, which is thought to be the focus of the flagship ride in the new area. It also revealed that the expansion will comprise three lands, and said that an announcement about them would be made on Monday (7 September). This was reflected in a message on the park's website.
However, soon after the event had ended, Forbes reported that Warner Bros.' Harry Potter social media channels had posted a message saying that Hogwarts Castle, Diagon Alley and the Forbidden Forest are coming to Abu Dhabi's new land.
Hogwarts or, as it's formally known, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is a giant grey Gothic castle where Harry learns the tricks of the trade. In stark contrast, the dingy Dickensian-style Diagon Alley has wonky wooden buildings and soaring spooky models embedded in its shop fronts.
Abu Dhabi's new Harry Potter land will offer Hogwarts Castle, Diagon Alley and the Forbidden Forest Warner Bros.
Currently, the only theme park home to a recreation of Diagon Alley is Universal Studios Florida. A scale model of Hogwarts is found in the neighbouring Islands of Adventure, and although it is connected to Universal Studios Florida by a replica of the Hogwarts Express train, it is a completely separate park.
The original concept art for Universal's mega park in Beijing showed that it would be home to both Diagon Alley and Hogwarts, but these plans were eventually scrapped and it only ended up with the latter.
They are both locked in for Abu Dhabi, along with the Forbidden Forest, and there could be good reason for this. During one scene in the movies, Harry and his friend Ron Weasley miss the Hogwarts Express back to the eponymous castle so instead they follow its tracks in the flying Ford Anglia, which skims across the English countryside.
On arriving at Hogwarts, the car's magic begins to fail and it plummets into the Forbidden Forest where it gets into a battle with a Whomping Willow tree followed by an army of giant spiders.
Middle East's first Harry Potter land
The flying car seems tailor made for a theme park ride, but Universal has never based an attraction on it despite widespread rumours that it would. It has been described as the ride that fans have been "asking for since the beginning", which makes it an easy way for Warner Bros. World to differentiate itself from Universal's Harry Potter lands.
Not only will Abu Dhabi get the first Harry Potter land that isn't operated by Universal, it will also be the first in a park bearing the brand of the studio that produced all of the movies about the boy wizard, so expectations are running high.
It will take more than the wave of a magic wand to meet them. Although an opening date for the expansion hasn't been officially announced, an advertisement posted in May by Entertainment + Culture Advisors, a consultancy working on the project, revealed that the area is due to open in 2029.
So although construction is well underway, there is still plenty of time to ensure that the land works its magic.
