Bollywood theme park in Mumbai soon

Los Angeles, Mumbai, India's entertainment capital and home to Bollywood, will soon get a theme park in a studio complex on the lines of Universal Studio in Los Angeles.

This will be a state-of-the-art township with a studio, a theme park, hotels, a movie museum and shopping malls.

The Maharashtra government has authorised a Hollywood law firm to identify possible partners for the project in investment, planning, design and development and is being assisted by a group of businessmen in Los Angeles.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) to this effect was signed earlier this week by Bhushan Gagrani, secretary of culture and tourism of Maharashtra and managing director of Film City in Mumbai, and on behalf of the Los Angeles group by Clark Siegel of Irell & Manella LLP, an attorney and consultancy firm that represents Hollywood studios including DreamWorks, Universal and Disney, Ken Silverman, president of Interactive Teamworks, and Nadadur Vardhan, president of Nadadur Vardhan Inc, an entertainment consulting firm.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who was here as part of his four-city, eight-day US trip to woo investments to his state, was present at the MoU signing ceremony.

He said: "We are looking at new ways to bring talent and technology to Mumbai and our film industry. We make nearly 1,000 films a year in Bollywood and it is indeed the capital of the entertainment business of India and this is a step to bring Hollywood and Bollywood closer together."

The ceremony was held at Vardhan's residence and attended by over 200 people including Indian dignitaries and prominent people from the entertainment industry as well as US Congressman Brad Sherman, chairman of the sub-committee on international business.

Vardhan told IANS: "This project is worth $2.5 billion. We have worked on it for two years. It will take another two years to get it going."