Tycoon with his own Hollywood dream for China

Wang Jianlin said his company, Dalian Wanda Group, would build a massive, 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 108,000 sq ft lot that Mr Wang said would be the world’s biggest.

The facility will also include an Imax research and development centre, 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.

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.

Mr Wang also hopes to attract more than 50 Chinese production companies to make at least 100 domestic films and TV shows a year.