QINGDAO, China (AP) -- China's richest man plans to spend 50 billion yuan ($8.2 billion) to build the country's version of Hollywood in the northeastern city of Qingdao.
In a glitzy, star-studded red carpet event Sunday, Wang Jianlin said his company, Dalian Wanda Group, will build a state-of-the-art film studio complex in a bid to dominate China's rapidly growing movie market.
The Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis's 20 studios will include a permanent underwater studio and a 10,000 square-meter (108,000 square-feet) stage that Wang said would be the world's biggest. The facility will also include an Imax research and development center, cinemas and China's biggest film and celebrity wax museums. The first phase is planned to open in June 2016 and it will be fully operational by June 2017.
A yacht marina, eight hotels and a theme park will be built to attract tourists.
The company has signed a preliminary deal with "a number of global film and television giants and talent agencies" to shoot about 30 foreign films a year. It did not name the companies.
Wang also hopes to attract more than 50 Chinese production companies to make at least 100 domestic films and TV shows a year at the studios, where sets will simulate locations from Europe, the Middle East and China's Ming and Qing dynasties.
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