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Warner Bros. to build production firm in UAE |
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 Warner Bros. Entertainment has partnered with two Abu Dhabi companies in a multibillion-dollar project that will bring Warner’s expertise in entertainment to the UAE.
Aldar Properties and Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC) will work with Warner Bros. – a unit of Time Warner, the world’s largest media company – to develop a film and video game production firm, in addition to a theme park, a hotel, and multiple cinemas in the Emirates.
Warner Bros. and its partners will invest $1 billion, split equally between a film development fund and a video game fund, according to a company spokesperson. The joint venture film fund will develop broad-appeal films in English. Under a separate agreement, Warner Bros. Pictures International will produce Arabic-language films with ADMC for pan-Arab distribution.
“We’re not limiting the films that we make for the local community,” says Richard Fox, Warner Bros. Executive Vice President. Warner will retain global distribution rights on video games produced by the game fund. It will also help design the theme park and hotel, slated to begin construction in 2009.
“Entertainment is a massive part of Abu Dhabi and its future,” says Mohammed Khalaf Al Mazrouei, Chairman of ADMC. And for his part, Aldar’s CEO Ronald Barrott told Reuters that the investment “will grow as the years go by and as it expands beyond the boundaries of the UAE.” He said his company “will tap capital market instruments to finance the project.”
A Time Warner press release called the project an “unpreced-ented, long-term, multi-faceted strategic alliance.” Abu Dhabi Media Company is a state-owned enterprise that was launched in June with a capital investment of about $27 million.Aldar is a real estate company developing more than $50 billion in projects, mainly in Abu Dhabi. |
