Billionaire Wang Jianlin’s (王健林) Dalian Wanda Group Co (萬達集團) unveiled subsidies worth more than US$150 million a year to lure filmmakers to his new studio complex in China’s coastal city of Qingdao.
Wanda, the flagship of Wang’s entertainment, real estate and finance conglomerate, is to provide as much as a 40 percent rebate for some production costs at Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis (青島東方影都), senior vice president Jack Gao (高群耀) said on Monday in Los Angeles.
Companies including Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, Arclight Films and Wanda’s own Legendary Entertainment (傳奇電腦公司) have agreed to use the Qingdao facility, Wanda said.
“It is certainly going to be attractive to filmmakers to look at that high of a percentage back,” said Steve Weizenecker, a partner at Barnes & Thornburg, specializing in tax incentives for film and television. “For the big studios that number is big and can certainly be something that moves the needle for them.”
Wang, 61, is in Los Angeles to promote a growing entertainment empire that last month agreed to collaborate on movie projects with Sony Pictures and this year acquired independent film producer Legendary Entertainment for US$3.5 billion.
Wanda’s US theater chain, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc, has agreed to buy Carmike Cinemas Inc, which would make it the biggest domestic cinema operator, and is also buying Odeon & UCI Cinemas in the UK.
“China will be half of the global market,” Wang said. “If you want to make money in this market, you will have to understand and please Chinese audiences.”
The 200-hectare Qingdao complex is set to fully begin operations in 2018, Wanda said.
The grounds are to include an underwater studio, animation facility and film lots reflecting Europe and Chinese capitals in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Plans for the 50 billion yuan (US$7.42 billion) development also include movie-oriented museums, resort hotels, a yacht club and a hospital at the site about 550km north of Shanghai.
Costs eligible for the rebate include Qingdao-based production spending, including for the sound stage, backlot, and on location, said Gao, who heads international investments at Wanda’s cultural division.
Extras, meals, accommodations, transportation during shooting, costumes, props rental, and even post-production are all eligible, he said.
Legendary is to shoot the next Pacific Rim and Godzilla monster movies at the studio.
Lions Gate, Infinity Pictures, Arad Productions, Arclight Films, Kylin Pictures, Base Media, Beijing Dirty Monkey Culture Industry Development and Juben Pictures have also agreed to make movies using the Qingdao facilities, according to Wanda.
Wanda held a high profile groundbreaking event in 2013, inviting some of Hollywood’s biggest stars to Qingdao, including Nicole Kidman, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Travolta, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ewan McGregor and Kate Beckinsale.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS