People in China will soon be able to visit their favorite Hollywood-themed attractions in the brand new Universal Studios theme park in Beijing in the spring of 2021. According to Universal Parks & Resorts, the Comcast subsidiary that operates the Universal Studio theme parks, the brand new park is now under construction and will be opened to the public very soon. The theme park will be officially named Universal Beijing Resort. It will be the company's fifth theme park, operating alongside Universal Studios Hollywood in California, Universal Orlando Resort in Florida, Universal Studios Japan, and Universal Studios Singapore.
The brand new theme park will reportedly sport two hotels and a massive shopping center. The Tongzhou district government also recently announced that the first phase of the project is slated to be completed by October 2020. The park will cover an area of around 1.6 square kilometers and will cost more than US$6.8 billion to finish. The park is a joint venture project between Universal Parks & Resorts and Beijing Shouhuan Cultural Tourism Investment Corp Ltd. The latter is a group of four state-owned companies that have pooled their resources for the massive project.
When finished, the park will be significantly larger than both Universal Studios Japan and Universal Studios Singapore; making it the largest Universal Studios outlet in Asia. According to the park's official website, they expect more than 3 million visitors to the park each year. Similar to its counterparts in other parts of the world, the theme park in Beijing will sport numerous attractions that are based on the popular movie, TV show, cartoon, comic, music, and video game properties owned by NBC Universal and other third-party companies. The specific rides and attractions that will be featured in the new park have unfortunately not yet been announced.
Aside from the rides and attractions, the park will also feature various restaurants, night clubs, theaters, and various entertainment hubs. The Tongzhou government recently held online biddings for third-party companies to build the park's various structures, which will include boat rides, carousels, and a roller coaster. The bidding was launched last month on the government's public resource trading platform.
Universal Parks & Resorts initially announced plans to build a Universal Studios theme park in China back in October 2014. The company had originally planned to invest around US$3 billion for the project. Aside from the theme park in China, Universal Parks & Resorts had previously announced plans to build two other theme parks. This includes a theme park in Russia and another one in South Korea. Universal Studios Moscow is scheduled to open its doors sometime in 2020. Meanwhile, Universal Studios South Korea is scheduled to open in 2021 after being canceled three times.
