Universal signs deal with China to open Beijing theme park

The studies say a signing ceremony for the three way partnership happened Sunday on the New York headquarters of Comcast NBCUniversal, which owns Common Studios Hollywood.

Universal Parks & Resorts, a Comcast unit, is partnering with Beijing Shouhuan Cultural Tourism Investment Co. Besides the theme park, they will look for more opportunities to enlarge their business in China, especially in Beijing.

The deal was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission in September the previous year and was directly led by the local government of Beijing.

It will be Universal’s third theme park in Asia, after Singapore and Osaka, Japan. The first stage involves building the Universal CityWalk retail-entertainment complex and the Universal-themed resort hotel. Another theme park, a water park and five other resort hotels are planned to be built in the second stage. NBCUniversal owns Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando Resort and has licensing agreements with Universal Studios Japan and Universal Studios Singapore, according to Comcast’s website.

The 2.2 million-square-meter theme park will be built at a cost of 50 billion yuan (HK$60.85 billion) in Beijing’s east suburban district of Tongzhou, state media said.

There are two Universal Studios parks in the U.S. , one in Los Angeles and another in Orlando.

The giant theme park, operated by US cable company NBCUniversal, was the first to allow the public to experience action-packed entertainment and take a behind-the-scene look at movie making. The park will open in 2019. Universal also holds the rights to Sesame Street, Hello Kitty and Marvel characters at the park, in addition to Universal’s own franchises.