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Genting Theme Park refurbishment (FOX studio theme park)


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^ A lot of things were interesting. I can understand the Marvel rights, it doesn't really compete with anything Disney at all so I'm sure they aren't too worried, especially since they can't do anything with the X-Men anyways. I'm more surprised with Avatar just because James Cameron is so possessive over his stuff and is already working with Disney on this. I'm curious what the park plans to do with Avatar.

 

Also, was that Gordon Ramsey? I wonder if he is doing a restaurant (or was this already discussed?). I've only eaten at one of his places here in Vegas (BurGR) and it was absolutely delicious.

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I actually went up into Genting today just for a little look around... and wow! I now know what people were on about describing it to be a dump! It is in desperate need for an injection of new life. It's actually a very scenic place, as you can catch a taxi into the highlands and then catch the cable car that takes you up to the resorts area. It's a very beautiful ride, with great views (especially if it wasn't overcast like it was today!) and is well worth the RM6 (US$2). The whole Genting resort area is very tired and run down however. Having said that, there are a huge amounts of cleaning, refurbing and construction going on in the area, and rightly so if FOX is going to do business there. I can't imagine them wanting to have their theme park in an area the state it is in at the moment!

 

I have some photos and will try to post them up soon, but basically, the entire Genting Theme Park has been demolished, except for the drop tower, although that had workesr on it, so I'd imagine that is coming down soon. There is still some rocket ship thing, which I'm sure was all part of the theming, and that looks like that is being taken down too.

 

The actual theme park area has been mostly leveled off, while the rubble has been cleared to the outside and is still in the process of being cleared. Something that did surprise me was the lack of advertising this new park is getting. All the old signs and advertisements are still around the place, while not a single sign of FOX's future park is mentioned, which was a real surprise to me. I thought it would be big news.

 

One last thing, which may be important to some, is as we were taxiing it back down the mountain, we drove past some of the old coaster track (I was unable to get any photos sadly). The old Vekoma Corkscrew w/Baynecourve model is neatly disassembled there and I'm sure I saw some of the Zamperla Volare track too. I'd imagine that these two models may be relocated elsewhere... Who knows?

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^I can't believe they're going to, what looks like, bulldoze all of their current hotels as well as the park! I mean, if they actually tear down the entire complex and rebuild it we could be looking at a real resort! Have they announced any big closure dates for the area? I just can't see them trying to keep some sections open while doing what's in the concept art. Unless of course the concept art is just that, and we'll just see a repainting of the hotels or something not as cool.

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This looks like it's going to be really good. It's already in a beautiful location on top of a mountain in a forested area and hopefully they keep the gondolas that go up to the mountain. I'd like to see a Simpsons area and a Family Guy attraction/area at this Fox studios as well.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

As promised, my construction photos I took when in Genting around a month ago... I would have put them up earlier, but I haven't had any access to a computer for the last 2 weeks!

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Overview of the site

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First World Hotel still there... and still an unbelievably ugly colour scheme!

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Entrance plaza and drop tower in the background

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Through the fence...

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Machinery...

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Looks like an old pool, now drained

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Empty pool again, with back of the park in the background

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Rundown looking plaza, just alongside the park

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Drop tower still up...

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First World Hotel again

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Looks like construction workers are preparing to remove the drop tower too...

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Looks like there was quite a lot if rain recently...

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There is supposed to be a magnificent view of Kuala Lumpur from here, but as you can see in the background, it is way too cloudy. This was very disappointing...

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Rocket ship is still up... for how much longer, I don't know!

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Good pictures, although a very sad update since demolition pictures are always sad (well, almost always). I do wish, for charm, that they kept at least a few of the rides, like the drop tower.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

http://www.iaapa.org/news/funworld/funworld-magazine/twentieth-century-fox-is-set-to-enter-the-theme-park-arena-in-malaysia---april-2014

 

Resorts World Genting is razing a 35-year-old iron ride park in Malaysia’s Genting Highlands to make way for the world’s first Twentieth Century Fox theme park.

Twentieth Century Fox World will be built on a 25-acre site featuring more than 25 rides and attractions based on famous Fox content including “Alien vs. Predator,” “Ice Age,” “Night at the Museum,” “Rio,” and “Planet of the Apes.”

 

“We really are in the franchise business at Fox,” says Greg Lombardo, Twentieth -Century Fox’s vice president of global location-based entertainment. “Developing franchises allows us to really, frankly, support a much higher level of capital expenditure on the attractions. These are properties that will be in the public’s eye for a long time to come. We know these characters, and now it’s a chance to bring them to life in very new and exciting ways.”

 

By the time the new theme park opens, there will be five “Ice Age” movies, three new “Planet of the Apes” (counting the sequels coming out in 2014 and 2016), a second “Rio,” and a third “Night at the Museum.” These movies are not only hugely popular in the United States, but at overseas box offices, as well.

 

The venue for the park in Malaysia—which Fox sees in some ways as a proof of concept for larger parks elsewhere—is located up a steep drive alongside a thriving casino about an hour from Kuala Lumpur. It was formerly home to an iron ride park built with slightly themed off-the-shelf attractions. The new park designed by Fox and Genting, with an eye to detail and a goal of immersing visitors in blockbuster content, could not be more different.

 

“We’re going to be able to bring these environments to life in a way that gets us away from that formulaic approach of ‘I’m going to go from attraction to attraction to attraction,’” explains Lombardo, who brings a creative edge to his job after working previously as an independent film producer and serving five years as the head of New York’s National Shakespeare Company.

 

“This is going to be an opportunity for people to literally go inside of Scrat’s fantasy that we’ve seen in the movies, his pursuit of the acorn … We’re going to really put people—when they enter the Ice Age environment—in that world.”

 

The desire to make every inch in the park count is also driven by geography—the site extends to the edge of a cliff. But Fox and Genting plan to make it seem bigger than it is by building some of the attractions underground.

 

“When you’re dealing with a smaller footprint, like we are, we’re going to rely on a highly detailed environment to provide those surprises and moment-by-moment experiences that are going to extend the dwell time in a way that maybe you don’t necessarily have the challenge of if you have a hundred acres to play with,” says Lombardo. “We’re [also] going to go below the deck on some of the rides, so we’ll be basically doubling up on square footage that way. In cases where you have dark attractions, we can go below grade and increase the footprint that way.”

 

Designing its own branded theme park represents a strategic switch for Twentieth Century Fox, which has previously licensed content to other big players in the industry. Some of the studio’s most famous blockbusters—like “Avatar” (licensed to Disney) and “The Simpsons” (Universal Studios)—will be noticeably absent from Malaysia as a result of past deals. But striking out in a bigger way seems like a no-brainer to Lombardo.

 

“Why wouldn’t we be doing theme parks?” he asks. “With these kind of properties at our fingertips, why would we simply hand [them] over to others to put within their theme parks? Why not create theme parks around those properties that we can really control and have a say [in]?”

 

The deal with Genting is still based on a licensing model. Fox provides the intellectual property while Genting invests $300 million to build and operate the park; the difference is Fox now has a dedicated team to place its stamp on the park.

 

Fox and Genting expect most guests are likely to be Malaysian and Chinese nationals who regularly visit Genting to gamble—significant for Fox, which has ambitions to expand to China. The companies won’t say how many visitors are expected when Twentieth Century Fox World opens in 2016, but they expect it to be much higher than the 2 million who frequented Genting’s old park.

 

First Malaysia, Then the World: An Interview with Twentieth Century Fox’s Greg Lombardo

 

Twentieth Century Fox, one of the world’s best-known and most prolific producers of motion pictures and prime-time television shows, is going to open its first theme park in 2016 in Malaysia. The $300 million Twentieth Century Fox World is set for Resorts World Genting.

 

Funworld’s Michael Switow talks with Twentieth Century Fox’s point man for the project, Greg Lombardo, vice president for global location-based entertainment—a relatively new hire for Fox but a 23-year veteran of the entertainment industry—about Fox’s partnership with Genting Malaysia and future expansion plans.

 

Fox could have chosen anyplace in the world to open its first theme park—North America, Europe, Japan … why Malaysia?

 

It is our first theme park and, for that reason, we needed to get this right and we needed to create, in essence, a real proof of concept. We need to obviously exert as much creative control and influence as we can over the project, but we’re not operating. So, the list of world-class developers with that sort of operational experience and capital credentials to undertake a project like this is a fairly short list.

 

Most importantly, that first footprint has to be in Asia. It has to be in a place that is going to provide us a really critical gateway to what will be probably our most important audience in the future—and that’s the Chinese.

 

Genting is best known for its casinos—which it operates in the Bahamas, Malaysia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.—though it also opened Universal Studios Singapore three years ago in collaboration with Resorts World Sentosa. Why did Twentieth Century Fox choose Genting Malaysia to be its partner for its first amusement park?

 

Genting provided us with all those sort of key indicators. We had what was an existing park that had been there since about 1978. Plus, we had a commitment on Genting’s part to basically raze that entire park and start from scratch.

 

So you have this great combination of a shovel-ready project that has the infrastructure and the footprint in place, but you have all the opportunity of a green field sort of approach. These things came together in a sort of perfect storm, in a good way, to create this unique opportunity for us to establish that first footprint.

 

You mention a “first footprint.” Is Twentieth Century Fox World in Malaysia going to be the first of many Fox amusement parks?

 

Absolutely. First and foremost, we have a concept that will work globally. We have a concept that will work very well in China, across Asia, in other emerging markets like Russia, and in areas like Latin America. And, frankly, we have a concept that will work really well in the U.S. So I think for us, everything is in play.

 

When you look at the sort of collection of [intellectual property] that Fox controls—we have an almost 80-year history that has provided some of the world’s most successful film and television properties and speaks to a very wide demographic—you quickly realize, “Wait a second. We need to be in the theme park destination business.” We are not in a business of one-offing these attractions to other players in this field.

 

You name a whole bunch of other locations. Where do you think the next park will be after Malaysia?

 

I don’t want to talk too much about that, but I think it’s safe to say that we’ll be making other announcements. Certainly we look at China as a tremendous long-term opportunity. If you look at the success of some of our films there, they hold numerous box office records and have really been embraced by Chinese audiences.

 

“Ice Age” is one of the most popular animated films of all time in China. It had a record box office there in its fourth installment and we have recently announced a fifth “Ice Age,” which is actually the first time ever that a fifth animated installment has been made in a franchise anywhere. So, “Ice Age” continues to be an incredible international calling card for us.

 

Fox also has a very active international film production group that is going into these emerging markets and creating content alongside local partners. [This content] will speak to a theme park audience in a fairly unique way—to be able to offer them both truly global content and also really localized and culturally significant content.

Edited by jedimaster1227
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  • 1 month later...

Wow, I am impressed that there are still so many people visiting after the park has closed.

 

Here is my analysis of what kind of attractions to expect!. Particuarly, the released images indicate to me

1) There might be a b&m flyer or wingrider coming

2) The musical fountain concept is so awesomely romantic

Also, please take note that some indoor attractions like Genting Skyventure (similar to I-Fly) are closed as well!

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  • 2 months later...

Photos taken on 19th-21st August

 

This is a sort of panorama taken from the escalators connecting Genting proper and First World.

 

Site's busy; workers, trucks, excavators, jackhammers everywhere!

 

Basically it looks like they want to flatten the whole area including Magic Mountain (where Corkscrew, Dinosaurland, Space Shot, etc were) save the 3 mounds of greenery. Also, they've taken up the road ringing the theme park that led from Theme Park Hotel to First World. Theme Park Hotel has also been closed. On the right (1st picture, under the giant Energizer/Coca-Cola, you can see that they're building some sort of structure. Lots of workers building that thing, even at night they work on it with bright spotlights. On the left (3rd picture), you can see that a big chunk of First World Plaza is being taken down, including Sky Venture.

 

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It looks like they're protecting Arena of Stars jealously, for unknown reasons. you can see by the plastering of the entrances. More startling is that there is no longer access to it.

 

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Green patches and other scenes at the site.

 

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all photo belong to my friend ,credit to Zijian Van Der Yow

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Wow! Fabulous update, thanks!

 

It gives me a ton of hope about this project to see them just raze everything they had before.

 

For those of you who have not been here, allow me to put into perspective the amount of work they're doing...

 

Imagine a small to medium sized park that is up on a mountain accessible only by two cable cars or a mountain road that kills around 50 people a year due to fog and its treacherous nature.

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