BEIJING – Four gigantic, Chinese characters are aligned on a hilloverlooking a seaside film studio complex, in a nod to the fabled Hollywoodsign, the American cultural icon in Los Angeles.
Except this is northern China’s port city of Qingdao, where Dalian WandaGroup, a real-estate, retail and entertainment conglomerate, is opening itsdoors to an audacious $7.9 billion (50 billion yuan) world-class filmproduction hub, called the Oriental Movie Metropolis, or Dong Fang Ying Du.
The project boasts the world’s largest studios, a commercial complexcovered with giant portraits of Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and BruceLee. There’s also a reclaimed island full of hotels, condos, two theatersand a yacht club.
It all adds up to China’s largest and glitziest effort yet to attractHollywood filmmakers to work their magic using domestic film-productionstudios — the sort of move that can enhance the nation’s “soft power” andcultural reach on the global stage. For Wanda’s billionaire chairman WangJianlin, who has dialed back his ambitions to build an entertainment empirethanks to debt pressure, a lot is riding on the success of the complex.
On Saturday, executives from major studios in Hollywood and China came toQingdao, a city best known for its namesake beer, for the opening ceremony.It comes as the Beijing-based conglomerate has seen its debt-fueled, globalshopping spree curtailed by the Chinese government.
As Wang, 63, presided over the festivities, he said it will become a newhub for global film making.
Making the complex a global magnet for film-making will be a challenge,according to Sun Hengqin, chief president assistant of Wanda Film Group andthe head of the movie metropolis. “We have yet to figure out a clearstrategy to attract Hollywood and other foreign filmmakers,” Sun said.”Yes, we’d love them to come and shoot their films here, and we will studywhat are the factors that prevent them from coming and improve our servicesaccordingly.”
The studios have been partially open since the second half of 2016 and havehosted the production of 10 films. Other than Wanda’s LegendaryEntertainment, no big Hollywood studio has produced a movie in Qingdao.Most of the productions have been Chinese films, albeit some of them withbig budgets, such as “Feng Shen,” a 3 billion yuan trilogy based on anancient Chinese mythological novel.
“We plan to position ourselves first for the domestic market before goingoverseas,” said Sun, a former local government official. “Feng Shen,” hesaid, will occupy half of the studios’ 30 sound stages for the next twoyears and that five to six other Chinese films have committed to using thefacility this year.
The entire complex spans an area of 929 acres (376 hectares), according toa Wanda statement in 2013, when the project broke ground with Hollywoodglitterati such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman and now-disgracedproducer Harvey Weinstein.
Wang, once the richest men in China, has spent big in his bid to become amovie industry mogul, starting with his acquisitions of AMC EntertainmentHoldings and Legendary. Now, he’s in retrenchment mode after debtsballooned and the government began scrutinizing his business empire. LastJuly, Wanda sold a majority stake in Oriental Movie Metropolis to SunacChina Holdings, a Chinese real-estate developer, together with 12 themeparks across the country.
Wanda still retains branding and management rights to the Qingdao studiosand the 12 other projects. However, the operation has had its share ofspeed bumps. The studios have had seven different CEOs since 2015, and mostof the international staff hired to help bring operations on par withHollywood standards have left, according to people familiar with thematter, who asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters. A Wandaofficial who declined to be named said it took time to find the right teamand that the Qingdao studios are open to the world with or withoutinternational staff.
There’s no lack of film and TV work in China, the world’s second-largestbox office and the world’s biggest producer of TV dramas. The Qingdaostudios do have one big competitive edge: a 5 billion yuan incentiveprogram jointly funded by Wanda and the Qingdao government, according toApril Ye, China Chief Executive Officer of Film Finance Inc., aCalifornia-based company that’s worked with Wanda and helps independentfilmmakers raise funds.
“This is the first time in China that authorities and the private sectorjoin hands to invest such enormous resources for the development of thefilm industry,” she said. “There’s a big opportunity to set things rightfrom the beginning, as well as lots of challenges to get there.”
Another positive development: Residential condo sales at the developmentcould get a boost from a robust local property market.