The government of China is constructing a $2-billion film studio and theme park complex in Chongqing. The complex would make the park Asia’s version of Universal studios and other studios in Hollywood.
The complex, which would house a theme park, film studio and office compound, would be named after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” program, the Los Angeles Times reported. Construction of the park, to be located at the mountainous Wulong County in Chongqing Province, would serve as a platform to push for the exchange and cooperation between foreign movie companies and Chinese film enterprises, Tan Nianshen, the upcoming park’s project manager, said.
The park’s contractor is ZYHJ Industry Investment, an investment company based in Chongqing Province but registered in Hong Kong in 2013.
Stanley Rosen, a Chinese film expert and professor of political science at USC, said the decision to build the park is more of a political decision than economic. The project is timed with the emergence of China as the largest film market in the world, although box-office results in the country had slowed down recently.
Ahead of the opening, officials of the project said they have operating agreements with several foreign partners. The park would include tie ups with gaming and online entertainment providers, according to South China Morning Post.
Besides the Chinese government, the Wanda Dalian Group in China is also constructing 150 cinemas across the U.S. and what it said would be the world’s biggest movie and TV studio spread over 400 acres of land. Its first phase is slated to open in 2017 in Qingdao, city in eastern China.