Paramount Pictures said yesterday that developers will open a theme park and resort complex in South Korea in 2011 based on Mission: Impossible, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and other movies by the studio.
Paramount Movie Park Korea will have more than 30 attractions, said Michael Corcoran, president of Paramount Pictures Corp’s consumer products and recreation group, who predicted it will draw more than 5 million visitors during its first year of operation.
“South Korea is a fast-growing and attractive market,” Corcoran told a news conference. “It’s a business-friendly market and culturally sophisticated.”
He also said the park will prove attractive to international visitors.
Plans for theme parks based on the films of Universal Studios and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in South Korea have also been announced with an eye to luring both local and international visitors, especially from nearby China.
Spearheading Paramount Movie Park Korea’s development is a joint venture led by South Korea’s Daewoo Motor Sales Corp. The formation of the venture, which will fund and own the park, was also announced yesterday.
Paramount Licensing Inc, which handles licensing rights worldwide for Paramount Pictures, is not a member of the joint venture but will manage the park’s creative development.
A licensing agreement was signed last December.
Aspects of Korean entertainment and pop culture, popular in much of Asia, will be incorporated into attractions at the park to be built in Incheon, a port city west of Seoul, officials said.
Corcoran said future plans also include the addition of a water park and two resort hotels.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique