New paramount movie park in Japan

Viacom to build movie theme park in Japan

TOKYO - Viacom Inc, a major US media firm that owns film studio Paramount Pictures, plans to build a movie theme park in Fukuoka prefecture.

Viacom hopes to open the gates in 2005 and is calling for investment from Japanese companies. If the Viacom project materializes, Japan will have three theme parks that originated in the United States, including Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan.

Japan Trade Inc, which has an exclusive contract with Viacom for development projects in Japan, will hold a seminar on Thursday in Fukuoka to brief companies and municipalities on the project.

The theme park is expected to be built on 20 hectares of idle land in the town of Hisayama, just east of Fukuoka city. Total investment in the project is estimated at about 150 billion yen (US$1.22 billion), with 5 million visitors a year targeted.

Viacom intends to raise most of the funding through investments and loans from companies. But with intensifying competition among theme parks and Japan in a protracted economic clump, it is not certain whether the necessary funding can be raised.

Paramount operates six theme parks in North America, but none is movie-themed.

This sounds pretty cool, too bad i probably will never go to japan

yet another reason to get to Japan in the next 5 years. Obviously 2 of the big companies saw how successful Disneayland Tokyo was so they are getting the picture.