Popeye Village

Overview

Popeye Village is a paid family attraction at Anchor Bay in northern Malta, occupying the wooden village built in 1979 as the set for Robert Altman’s film Popeye. It sits about 3 km from the core of Il-Mellieħa and consists of 19 rustic wooden buildings, standing where the film crew left them.

Be clear about what this is not. It is not a Maltese village, it is not old, and it is not a museum in the ordinary sense. It is a purpose-built film set, repainted and maintained for more than four decades, run commercially with live animation shows, a small cinema, mini-golf, a comic museum and, in summer, inflatables and splash pools in the bay. Costumed performers play Popeye, Olive Oyl and Captain Bluto.

That framing decides whether it is worth the money. With children roughly between three and ten it is one of the few places on the island built entirely around them, and in summer the ticket buys a whole day of swimming rather than an hour of looking at things. Without children, you are paying 15 to 25 euro per adult, by season, to walk around a small set of wooden huts and watch shows pitched at primary-school audiences. Plenty of adults enjoy it for the oddity and the setting, but nobody should arrive expecting a film-history experience.

The setting is the best of it, and that part is free. Anchor Bay is a narrow inlet cut into low cliffs, and the painted village stacked around its head photographs well from above. A viewpoint mapped as Veduta fuq Popeye Village sits beside the approach road about 100 metres south of the site, outside the ticket line.

The bay lies below the ridge south of Mellieħa, on the coast that runs down to Golden Bay, and it is a standard stop on a day out in Central and Northern Malta.

History

The village was built to be filmed, not visited. Construction began in June 1979 for Popeye, a live-action musical made by Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions from E. C. Segar’s comic strips, with Robin Williams as Popeye and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl. A crew of 165 worked four months to raise 19 wooden buildings, using hundreds of logs and several thousand planks imported from the Netherlands, roof shingles from Canada, eight tons of nails and some 7,600 litres of paint. A breakwater of 60 to 75 metres was thrown across the mouth of Anchor Bay to keep winter seas off the set.

The set was finished in seven months. Filming ran from 23 January 1980 to 19 June, three weeks late because of bad weather. It was an unhappy production: the Sweethaven set was built far beyond what the shoot needed, and Williams is reported to have called the place Stalag Altman.

Was it a flop

Commercially, no. Popeye took 6.3 million dollars in its opening weekend and about 60 million worldwide against a 20 million dollar budget. What sank its reputation was expectation: Paramount and Disney wanted a blockbuster, did not get one, and wrote the film off as a disappointment. Altman was pushed to the edges of Hollywood for a decade afterwards.

Critically, at the time, mostly yes. Reviews on release were largely negative, though the film has been reassessed since and now holds a 60 per cent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The afterlife has outlasted the film. Sets are normally struck; this one was left standing and opened to the public, gradually acquiring the shows, play areas and pools it has now. Some houses still hold props and dressings from the production.

Visiting

The site splits into a Lower Complex, the film set itself around the head of the bay, and an Upper Complex on the slope above it holding the games and most of the summer water attractions.

Hours and prices in 2026

Three seasons, each with its own hours, price and contents, as published on the official site in September 2026.

• High season, 1 June to 30 September 2026. Daily 09:30 to 18:00. Adults and teens 25 euro, children 3 to 12 and pensioners 16 euro.
• Mid season, 1 to 31 May and 1 October to 5 November 2026. Daily 09:30 to 17:30. Adults and teens 18 euro, children and pensioners 14 euro.
• Low season, 6 November 2026 to 30 April 2027. Daily 09:30 to 17:00. Adults and teens 15 euro, children 3 to 12 and pensioners 60 and over 12.50 euro.

Three rules apply all year: visitors aged 16 and under must be with an adult of 18 or over, online tickets are refundable if cancelled at least 24 hours ahead, and every attraction area shuts 10 minutes before the posted closing time. Everything is subject to availability.

What the ticket includes

In every season the ticket covers the set, live animation shows through the day, the cinema with its 15-minute documentary on the film and the building of the village, silversmith demonstrations, a free postcard and free popcorn. The Upper Complex adds nine-hole mini-golf, a mini assault course for children and traditional wooden games.

Summer adds the water: an inflatable assault course and a floating sun deck in the bay, two splash pools, a play pool for ages three to eight, sunbeds, umbrellas and showers. Sunbeds are limited and first come, first served. Winter substitutes dry activities: Popeye’s Comic Museum, a scavenger hunt, and the Take 2 Filming experience, in which visitors are costumed, rehearsed, filmed and shown the result in the cinema. The low-season Upper Complex is explicitly weather-dependent.

The operator’s summary of the village mentions boat rides, but no boat trip appears in any of the three itemised 2026 packages. Treat it as a weather-dependent extra that may not run on the day. No wine tasting or comparable adults-only activity is listed on the official site at all.

Getting there

The address is Anchor Bay, Triq Tal-Prajjet, Il-Mellieħa MLH 4808. The operator says there is ample car parking and that the site is wheelchair accessible; the set itself runs down a steep slope of wooden walkways and steps.

One bus route serves the site. Malta Public Transport route 101, between Ċirkewwa and Il-Gnejna, calls at a stop named Popeye, code 1005, by the entrance. Departures are roughly hourly and the day is short: on weekdays the stop is served from about 09:14 to 20:11 towards Ċirkewwa and about 09:42 to 20:38 the other way, nothing earlier or later. A day-route ticket bought on board costs 2.50 euro in summer and 2.00 euro in winter, valid two hours with free transfers.

Tips

Decide on the free view first. Stop at the roadside viewpoint south of the site before committing to a ticket. From there you get the photograph everyone comes for, you can see how large the village actually is, which is not very, and you can judge whether it suits your group. It costs nothing.

Match the season to the reason. These are effectively two attractions sold under one name. Between June and September you are buying a beach club with a film set attached; between November and April, the set, the shows and the indoor activities at 10 euro less per adult. Choosing high season and then not swimming is the most expensive way to visit.

Book online, but keep the 24-hour rule in mind. Online tickets are refundable only if cancelled at least 24 hours ahead, which matters more here than elsewhere: much of what you pay for is outdoors, and the site closes in serious storms. If the forecast is uncertain, decide the day before rather than a week ahead.

Outside summer, give it half a day. In low and mid season most visitors have seen the set, the museum, the cinema and a show inside two to three hours, and attraction areas shut 10 minutes before the gate. Combining it with Mellieħa and the coast road towards Golden Bay makes a better day than stretching the village itself.

Check the return bus before you go in. Only route 101 serves the Popeye stop and it runs about once an hour, so a missed bus means a long wait or a taxi. Driving is on the left in Malta, and the descent to Anchor Bay is narrow.