Cotai Strip Resorts Macao introduced a DreamWorks Experience last year
DREAMWORKS Animation is about to unveil its new indoor theme park in China, which will be a six-hour experience featuring some 32 attractions that can operate year-round.
Highlighting this in an interview at the summit, DreamWorks CEO and co-founder/director, Jeffrey Katzenberg, said: “We now have enough characters and stories to create what we think would be a very unique theme park experience. We’ve been working on it for one-and-a-half years or so.
“We’ve just spent time touring Hainan; this is one of the places that we will expect to be building one. It’s an exciting new opportunity for us, and it gets us highly engaged in the tourism business.”
The company is already investing heavily in China, partnering with Hong Kong’s Lan Kwai Fong Group to open DreamCenter in Xuhui District in Shanghai, an integrated development featuring multiple entertainment venues, including a 500-seat IMAX Cineplex tailor-made for movie premiers and red carpet events; retail outlets; and upscale restaurants and bars. The project was kicked off last month, and is scheduled to open in 2017.
Pointing out that much of his team’s inspiration for new works were born out of their travel experiences, Katzenberg said DreamWorks is in the midst of developing a Ramayana-inspired Bollywood musical, which would “celebrate the culture of India”.
“Everything we do for animation is from our imagination, so inspiration can come from many different places,” he explained, adding that filmmakers are sent on research trips to get inspiration, while travel is also used as a way to reward talent.
Katzenberg himself has a voracious appetite for travel, known for making the most of his holidays, such as covering the whole of South America in eight days.
“Sleep is for when you finish the trip…I just want to see as much as I possibly can. I find that the more you can take it, the more exciting it is,” he quipped.
The former chairman of The Walt Disney Studios said The Lion King was inspired by his trip to Africa, falling in love with Chengdu’s pandas resulted in Kung Fu Panda, and the amazing landscapes of Madagascar were what he wanted to bring out in the eponymous movie.
