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Qingdao film hub may rival Hollywood
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Nicole Kidman, Leonardo DiCaprio and John Travolta yesterday added their star power to the glitzy inauguration of the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis, billed as China’s answer to Hollywood.
China’s richest man Wang Jianlin and his Wanda Group have poured 50 billion yuan (US$8.2 billion) into the sprawling complex in Qingdao in Shandong Province. Construction has already started but the complex will only be operational from 2016.
Wang told a star-studded ceremony the development was part of China’s bid to ramp up its “cultural power” on the world stage and create a “Chinawood” that could one day rival Los Angeles as a global center of film.
China’s leaders have said the country must make greater use of so-called “soft power” to promote the nation’s values abroad.
But critics say censorship is hampering the Chinese film industry’s ability to compete with Hollywood, and even those films that get a strong reception in China have difficulties in cracking the bigger US market.
Sprawling across 376 hectares on the outskirts of the eastern port city famous for its “Tsingtao” beer, the “Movie Metropolis” will have 20 studios including what is billed as the world’s largest.
It should produce “at least a hundred films a year”, according to the Wanda Group, which says it has reached preliminary agreements to ensure that 30 foreign films will be shot there each year.
Chinese film stars such as Zhang Ziyi, Jet Li and Xu Zheng, who have themselves become global brands in their own right, were joined on the red carpet by some of the stars of Hollywood — the institution Wang is looking at rivalling.
Kidman was joined by fellow A-listers Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ewan McGregor and Christoph Waltz.
Cheryl Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) which organizes the annual Oscars, also attended the gala, saying she was “very enthusiastic” the complex could turn Qingdao into “an international center of cinema.”
Hawk Koch, the former president of AMPAS, said the new development should increase cooperation between Chinese and international film industries.
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