Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), one of the largest Hollywood movie companies and theme park operators, will set up a Hollywood-style amusement park in Republic of Korea's southeastern port city of Busan.
MGM, Busan City and a Korean agency Glovit signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Wednesday (Mar. 15) to establish the movie theme park “MGM Studio City” on a tourist complex site in the city's Gijang district.
Busan Mayor, Hur Nam-sik, and seven MGM officials, including Travis Rutherford, MGM's executive vice president, took part in the signing ceremony at the Grand Hyatt Seoul.
It is the first time for the film production company to set up a theme park outside the U.S.
“We'll invite 5 million annual visitors by establishing a complex entertainment venue where people can enjoy various leisure and shopping facilities not only in the daytime but also at night,” Rutherford said.
The MGM Studio City, on 990,000 square meters of land, will comprise seven zones including leisure facilities, shopping centers, restaurants and accommodation.
The center of the studio city will be MGM Studio Park, where visitors can experience the filming process in amusement facilities featuring MGM produced movies, similar to that at Universal Studios in Los Angeles.
The other zones include a shopping venue; Hollywood Way; the Hollywood Hotel; the Film Academy, where people can learn about filming; and an amusement park called Thrill Park.
Construction will start at the end of 2007 with a 700 billion won investment from MGM. The city plans to open the park in early 2011.
If the first park offers promising returns, the U.S. company and the City of Busan will consider building an additional water park and hotels with 2,000 rooms with an investment of over 300 billion won.
Busan and MGM hope to have major details ironed out by the middle of July.
The city expects the park will create 30,000 jobs and earn 2-2.5 trillion won of profits annually.
“We expect the MGM Studio City will help the tourist complex in Busan become a leader of tourism in Northeast Asia along with Universal Studio in Japan and Disney Land in Hong Kong. We will give full support for the establishment of the park,” mayor Hur said.
MGM is one of the world's seven major movie companies. It produces various genres of movies and television soap operas for world distribution.
It also operates theme parks, including Disney MGM Studio, one of Walt Disney World's five theme parks in Orlando, Florida.
The source of news : Korea.net March 16, 2006
