Wanda built an $8B movie metropolis in Qingdao — then sold it to cut debt

The Oriental Movie Metropolis opened in Qingdao on 28 April 2018: studios with 30 sound stages billed as the world's largest, on a project built with roughly 50 billion yuan of investment — an estimated $8 billion — alongside theme parks, hotels and malls. Wanda's pitch was to make China the place Hollywood films.

The timing was wrong for its builder. Deep in debt and facing tighter rules on capital flowing abroad, Wanda had already sold a majority stake in the metropolis and its theme parks to Sunac China Holdings in July 2017 for $9.3 billion — then China's second-largest property deal. A rebate programme worth 5 billion yuan was announced to lure productions; even so, at opening the headline Hollywood credit was Legendary's Pacific Rim: Uprising.

On 1 November 2018 Wanda sold the remainder of its film and theme-park holdings — including the Qingdao metropolis — to Sunac for 6.281 billion yuan, about $907 million, handing over even the right to change the Wanda name on the parks. The showcase had lasted six months under its own flag.