Popeye Village: How Malta Turned a Hollywood Flop into a €4 Million National Treasure

**In Pictures: Postcards of Popeye Village at Anchor Bay – Malta’s Technicolour Ghost Town Turned National Treasure**

Mellieħa locals still call it “Sweethaven,” the name painted on the clapboard façades that cling to Anchor Bay’s limestone cliffs like bright barnacles. Forty-four years after director Robert Altman wrapped his ill-fated musical “Popeye,” the ramshackle film set has become one of Malta’s most improbous success stories: a living postcard that earns €4 million a year, lures 180,000 visitors, and employs 120 villagers—many of whom were born in the same sandstone houses their grandparents rented to Robin Williams in 1979.

On a wind-scoured April morning, the cove is cinematic. Fishing boats bob beneath ochre cliffs while the village’s 22 wooden structures—painted sherbet-pink, sea-foam green and sun-faded red—glow against the Mediterranean like a child’s paintbox. Tourists in straw boaters queue for “Spinach Cans” (€3, chilled) while a Maltese actor in forearm-padding croons the 1980 soundtrack in perfect Maltenglish. “I was six when they filmed,” says 50-year-old Raymond Bajada, now head carpenter. “My mum sold rabbit stew to the stuntmen for 50c a plate. Today my daughter works here as a stage manager—three generations feeding off spinach.”

The set was never meant to last. Built in seven months by 165 workers, the 8,000-square-metre village was constructed from imported Canadian timber and Baltic pine, its nautical nails shipped in oil drums because Maltese hardware stores didn’t stock the size. When production packed up, the government faced a dilemma: bulldoze the foreign timber or let it rot. Instead, entrepreneur Alfred Zammit leased the bay for LM1 (€2.33) a year, installed portable toilets, and opened the gates. “First year we charged 50c entrance and sold Kinnie from a cool-box,” Zammit laughs. “We broke even in six weeks.”

What began as a curiosity has calcified into cultural folklore. Schoolchildren island-wide still sit end-of-year exams that ask who played Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall) and which Mellieħa fisherman supplied the octopus for the boxing scene (Leli “tal-Qarn” Vella, since deceased). The village appears on Malta’s €10 silver commemorative coin and in countless wedding albums; last August, 32 couples exchanged vows inside the Admiral’s Arcade. “It’s our Trevi Fountain,” says Nadine Muscat, mayor of Mellieħa. “Foreigners come for Popeye, but they stay for Għadira Bay, for the red-sand beaches, for our village festa. Popeye is the gateway drug to the North.”

Economically, the numbers are spinach-strong. A 2022 KPMG study found every Popeye ticket generates an additional €32 in neighbouring restaurants, dive centres and farmhouses. Taxi boats from Ċirkewwa report 15% more passengers on days when the village runs its “Pirate Weekends.” Even the bay’s name has flipped: nautical charts once labelled it “Anchor Bay (Popeye Village)” in parentheses; newer editions reverse the order. “We’ve become the landmark,” boasts CEO Peter Zammit, Alfred’s son. “The bay is named after us.”

Yet success brings salt-water challenges. Storms in 2017 tore the post office roof clean off; rising seas regularly flood the set’s lower boardwalk. Heritage Malta lists the village as “movable heritage,” meaning no state funds for coastal armouring. Instead, management crowdfunded €80,000 for a rock-armour revetment, selling engraved “Popeye Bricks” to fans from 42 countries. “Malta problem-solving,” shrugs Zammit. “We patch with love and marine plywood.”

Environmentalists remain wary. BirdLife Malta reports increased boat traffic disturbs roosting yelkouan shearwaters, while plastic spinach-can souvenirs wash up as far as Gozo. The village retorted by banning single-use plastics in 2021 and funding a €50,000 seabed clean-up that hauled 2.4 tonnes of debris. “We’re not Disneyland,” insists Zammit. “We’re Maltese first, theme park second.”

As sunset ignites the façades tangerine, the last ferry horn echoes across the water. A teenager from Żabbar snaps a selfie with “Popeye,” captioning it “Only in Malta can a bankrupt film set become a national icon.” He’s right. In an archipelago where temples pre-date the pyramids, where every limestone block tells 7,000 years of story, the brightest chapter might just be the one painted in cartoon colours and held together with salt-stiffened timber. Spinach optional, pride compulsory.