We’re used to every theme park ride at Disney getting a big screen adapation, but now it looks like film producers are looking at other attractions with an eye for putting them on the silver screen. It’s now been announced that Allentown Productions has picked up the film rights for the Calico Ghost Town area of California’s Knott’s Berry Farm theme park, including all the rides and original characters in that section, with the idea to turning it into a movie.
The story for the film will be set in the turn of the century Wild West, in the gold mining town of Calico, which has been overrun by ghosts and evil supernatural creatures. Calico is actually a real town in the Mojave Desert, that at one point had over 500 silver mines, but was abandoned and became a tourist attraction, which was at one point owned by Knott’s Berry Farm founder Walter Knotts. Walter took the idea of Calico and incorporated it into his theme park, where it’s since grown ever more haunted.
According to Allentown head honcho James Moll, Calico is, “The perfect setting for a big, spooky, family adventure with all the elements of a classic Western — cowboys, showgirls, gunfights, chases through creepy mines — all with a supernatural twist.” The only thing we can’t help wondering though is whether they needed the theme park rights, as surely any old spooky wild west town would do?