China to build world’s most expensive film studio

Posted on September 26, 2013

China’s richest man has disclosed plans to build the world’s largest film studio on the country’s east coast, part of a £5.1bn development which he called the biggest film industry investment in history.

The Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis will contain 20 sound stages, including the world’s first underwater studio, a convention and exhibition complex, a shopping mall, amusement park, seven hotels and “an international hospital”. Despite spanning more than 1,300 acres it will not, apparently, be a contender for the title of world’s largest: that appears still to reside with the 47-stage Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, India, as certified by Guinness World Records.

The project marks the latest step for China as it seeks to take on Hollywood’s financial and artistic dominance of the global film industry. Wang Jianlin, the 58-year-old chairman of property developer Dalian Wanda Group, revealed details about his project at a ceremony on Sunday, calling it an “unprecedented project that will create history”. Celebrities including John Travolta, Nicole Kidman, Jet Li, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Leonardo DiCaprio and Zhang Ziyi attended the ceremony in Qingdao, a coastal city of 3 million people between Beijing and Shanghai.

The Oriental Movie Metropolis will open in 2017, Wang said, and will host an international film festival every autumn. “It is a film and television industry project with the world’s largest investment,” he told reporters.
The complex’s sheer size is proportionate to the challenges that China’s film industry seeks to overcome. Wang told reporters that he expects China’s box office, currently the world’s second largest, to take the top spot from the US by 2018. “Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis is a major measure to implement the national policy of building a cultural power,” he said.

Yet the country’s film industry is burdened by a stultifying bureaucracy and draconian censorship apparatus. While its box office has grown dramatically in recent years, Hollywood imports account for the bulk of its profits. US-China ­co-productions have become common, but few have gone on to conquer global markets. Many get so tangled up in negotiations that they never make it past the planning stages.

Wang seems undeterred. “With the huge potential that comes with a population of 1.3 billion, the global film industry will recognise that the sooner you partner with China, the sooner you make more money,” he said, according to the state newswire Xinhua.

Dalian Wanda is best-known for its real estate throughout China, including 72 Wanda Plazas, sprawling developments that usually include shopping malls, hotels and cinemas. The company’s international ambitions are expansive. Last year, Wang acquired the US multiplex chain AMC Cinemas for £1.6bn. He is building luxury hotels in New York and London. And last week he donated £12m to the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences, which will name a new film library in his honour.

The Shanghai business magazine Hurun Report has put Wang’s net worth at £13.7bn, making him China’s richest man, though assessing the wealth of Chinese entrepreneurs is notoriously difficult since virtually all of them are closely linked with government officials, whose assets are wide-ranging and usually well-hidden.

China is already home to Hengdian World Studios in coastal Zhejiang province, an 815-acre complex which includes replicas of ancient imperial palaces.

Wang has also moved into film production, most notably with Keanu Reeves’ directorial debut Man of Tai Chi, and historical costume drama The Palace.