ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Walt Disney Co. said Thursday it plans to open a $100 million 'Indiana Jones' ride early next year at its flagship Disneyland theme park, the most expensive and technologically advanced attraction ever opened there.
The ride, dubbed 'The Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye,' will portray an architectural dig at ancient temple ruins in India in 1935.
Riders in each jeep will be taken on one of three different tracks in the attraction, depending on choices made in the 'Chamber of Destiny,' with a total of 27 route variations.
The attraction, designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, will feature explosions, spear attacks, rats, snakes, bubbling lava pits, steam vents and an encounter with the evil god Mora. The finale of the ride will include a large rolling boulder that threatens to flatten the jeeps.
Construction on the ride has begun at the southwest corner of the park in Anaheim, Calif.
Disneyland draws an estimated 13 million visitors annually, making it the nation's second most popular theme park after Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
Disney has plans to build a $3 billion Westcot world's fair-type project in the Disneyland parking lot and open it around 1999. The new park would cover about 490 acres -- nearly six times the size of Disneyland.
Disney, of Burbank, Calif., chose Anaheim for its West Coast expansion in late 1991 after vocal opposition from residents in Long Beach prompted the company to abandon plans for a $3 billion ocean theme park and resort.
