Cinecittà World · Roma area · 24 July 2014
Roma Area · Aktium
The Battle of Actium, 31 BC, redone as a water coaster.
Behind the scenes
Ancient Rome
at water-coaster scale.
Building an "Ancient Rome" area inside a theme park means choosing which Rome to reference: the Republican one, the Augustan one, the Imperial one, the film one. Cinecittà World takes a precise position: the Rome of Ben Hur, of Cleopatra, of the 1960s Italian kolossals — the same historical season of Cinecittà cinema that turned this strip of Castel Romano into Dino De Laurentiis's studios. Aktium closes that circle: cinema → park → cinema, in a row.
Tech sheet
All production data
- Type
- Super Splash water coaster · themed opening-day attraction
- Official name
- Aktium
- Mechanical manufacturer
- Mack Rides (Germany)
- Park area
- Roma (Cinecittà World)
- Opening
- 24 July 2014 · with the park's opening
- Dimensions
- Height ~20 metres · over 500 metres of track · 2 lifts / 2 drops · speed up to 70 km/h · 16-passenger boats (4×4)
- Narrative theme
- Battle of Actium (31 BC), Antony + Cleopatra against Octavian · Second Italian Legion
- Station
- 1st-century Roman building scenographically designed by Dante Ferretti
- Park artistic direction
- Dante Ferretti, three-time Academy Award winner · scenography · ~40% of park opening budget allocated to scenography and attractions signed by Ferretti
- Note
- Not to be confused with Ben Hur (opening 8 April 2017), which today is one of the attractions of Roma World, sister park opened in 2020 on the same property — experience rebuilt from the set of the film remake Ben-Hur 2016 by Timur Bekmambetov.
- Our role
- Scenographic work for the park's Roma area: entrance triumphal arch, "Second Italian Legion headquarters" building that serves as pre-show for the attraction, scenography along the water coaster's track with Roman architectural remains in faux stone, polychrome marbles, bas-reliefs and classical details. Cinecittà World is listed in the Creation Art portfolio as a theme park project under the artistic direction of Dante Ferretti.
- Cluster
- Part of the Cinecittà World cluster
- Second life
- Attraction in operation since 24 July 2014 · one of the longest Super Splashes in Europe · 500+ metres of track themed on Imperial Rome
Second life
The Battle of Actium
as a water coaster.
Aktium is one of the park's most cinematographic narrative pieces: the Battle of Actium of 31 BC — Antony and Cleopatra against Octavian — reproposed as a themed water coaster, with the station as the "Second Italian Legion headquarters". Ferretti applies to the theme park the same dramaturgical grammar of cinema: the attraction tells a story, it is not just mechanical thrill.
Our scenography for Aktium — triumphal arch, pre-show building, architectural remains along the track — speaks with what we would deliver for Ben Hur a few years later, and with the Ancient Rome sets for films at Cinecittà. It is a Roman-archaeological work tradition crossing decades of the Italian scenography school.