A movie complex similar to Hollywood opened last Saturday in the coastal city of Qingdao. The “Qingdao Movie Metropolis” is a massive 7.9 billion USD complex that has been built in 5 years by the Dalian Wand Group. According to Wanda’s founder, Wang Jianling, the “Qingdao Movie Metropolis” is the biggest investment in the movie industry ever. It currently has 30 studies (with 10 more planned) and spans an area of 500 football fields.
The opening of the new studios was rather quiet though and without a big lineup of stars, especially if compared to the announcement event in 2013, where Hollywood top stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, John Travolta or Nicole Kidman attended. The reason for this is, that times have changed for Wang Jianling and his Wanda Group. In the 2013, the Wanda Group was a rising star and bought companies all over the world. Wang Jianling planned to build an entertainment empire, but things changed radically in 2017, when the Chinese government started to clamp down on overseas buying by Chinese firms. Since then, the Wanda Group is on a nonstop selling spree and also forced to focus on the domestic market.
