Paramount Park UK Project Gets British Government Approval

Not only the £2 billion Paramount Park UK project is not dead but yesterday was announced that it received the government approval! Now, although the theme park plans progress everything is not done yet, but if everything works fine construction should start in 2015 or 2016 and it should open for Easter 2020. They expect 15 Million visitors per year which seems a number a bit too high for me but i suppose it is here mostly for marketing the project... 

I've found for you the high-res file above of the park's model picture, so click on it as there is interesting things to see. I like the idea of what seems to be a wooden roller coaster - on the top right - running all along a big part of the park. Look also for the giant Star Trek Enterprise! Below excerpts from a Khl article:


"Plans for the £2 billion (€2.54 billion) Paramount entertainment resort at Swanscombe, Kent, have taken a step closer after initial government approval has been granted.

Project director Fenlon Dunphy, of London Resort Company Holdings, confirmed a timeline for the major UK scheme - which will create 27,000 jobs and deliver significant infrastructure upgrades during its phased four-year construction.

Developers behind the Disney-style site aim to make it the “best entertainment attraction in Europe” and believe it will deliver a range of economic benefits.

Its facilities will include a centrepiece theme park attraction linked to Paramount and based around some of the movie studio’s biggest blockbuster films.

In addition, there will be a water park, sporting facilities and hotel accommodation for 5,000 visitors.

Above: the land where the park is expected to be built.

Construction tenders for the scheme will be sought from the first quarter of 2015, following initial planning acceptance for the scheme this summer.

Mr Dunphy said, “Paramount resort has been accepted as a nationally important infrastructure project and we are expecting the scheme to gain full planning permission next year.

“This is very much intended as a resort rather than a day-visitor attraction. There will be the theme park, but we will also have a number of entertainment facilities including cinemas, theatre and dining around the site. There will also be a water park and a creative industries hub - which we hope will become a centre of excellence for businesses.”

The director responded to concerns on the need for urgent infrastructure improvements in tandem with the site’s development, highlighting the issue as a core priority for the company.

He confirmed the park would create up to 17,000 on-site jobs, bolstered by 10,000 further roles to be created in the wider economy through supply services.

The resort is expected to generate peak footfall of more than 15 million visitors a year following its planned opening in Easter, 2020.

Picture: copyright London Resort Company Holdings 

Fresh News About Paramount Parks Projects In London and Spain From Mike Bartok, EVP Licensing at Paramount Pictures

Blooloop has posted on July 28 a long and interesting interview of Mike Bartok, EVP - Licensing at Paramount Pictures. And Mike Bartok brings us good news about several Paramount Parks projects, including the ones in London and in Murcia, Spain, and even the Star Trek project - The Red Sea Astrarium - in Jordan!

As we know Paramount took the decision to move away from the role of attraction operator, and Mike Bartok is now looking after the licensing of Paramount’s wealth of IP which includes many much loved classics such as Star Trek, The Godfather and Forrest Gump.

Here are some excerpts of the interview in which Mike talks about the parks projects, and you can read it in full on Blooloop HERE.

How is Paramount looking to leverage IP?

Not as an owner anymore - we sold the parks and focussed on IP.  We’ve shifted from being an owner operator to being a licensor, designer and non-financial partner in the projects we’re participating in.
We do get involved in terms of the strategy for the ongoing operations.  We consult with our partners and have varied roles - obviously with our experience of running parks we’re in a different position than many of the other content licensors.  We’re not an operator but we’re a fairly active business partner.

How is the Paramount theme park in Murcia progressing  ( rendering above ) ?

It’s going quite well.  Building a theme park is like building a city and its going to take a bit of time, but our development partner has commenced the infrastructure on the project and we’re anticipating beginning the attraction construction in the next few months.  Hopefully the park will be open to the public sometime in 2016.  We haven’t set an official date yet but the park has been fully designed and we feel the next step is to build it.

We’re really excited about it.  We think of it as the next generation of theme park using all the cutting edge technology that’s available to us as well as putting into our programme a commitment to sustainability and green technology which is something that theme parks haven’t been known for in the past - we’re very committed to incorporating that and being sustainable.

The parks we owned, the ones we sold, we bought them and rebranded then and they were really good.  But we’re really excited to have the opportunity to design and see come to fruition a “ground-up” Paramount park.  When you rebrand you pick and choose, you don’t rebrand everything, and as you add attractions you overlay your brand.  When you build form the ground up every inch of it is Paramount which is cool.

Each land will have its own feel; every place that you walk you’ll have some theming either from the movies or Paramount, or the Southern California lifestyle which we’re trying to incorporate.

And what stage is the UK theme park at ( rendering above ) ?

That’s still in quite an early stage.  We’ve done some early concept work [see header image].  Planning and approval processes in the UK are quite lengthy but our development partner in the UK has made some good progress and we’re anticipating that we’ll receive planning approvals in the near future, and with the design work we’ll be able to move the project forward.

Are there any Star Trek Attractions being developed?

We really only do stand-alone attractions with Star Trek as we have a great history with it.  We have the one in Las Vegas and we’re fairly far along in terms of completing the film for the project in Jordan - The Red Sea Astrarium - with Bad Robot which should be very exciting.  That’s going to be a centrepiece attraction with incredible, state-of-the-art technology.  It’s more than just a film, it will be the first attraction ever made to be 4D with actual freefall mechanisms in there.  It should be fantastic and with Bad Robot involved we will have that authenticity.

Star Trek fans are keen on authenticity.  Does this present special challenges when developing an attraction?

Actually Star Trek is a great and one of our creatives’ favourites because it’s so vast.

The Star Trek universe has been created on both film and TV, so for the attractions that we’ve done every inch has been viewed and has to be authentic.  Some of the other IPs can be a little lighter but for the Star Trek World, it really requires full commitment creatively and financially to pull it off.

Which locations do you think are particularly exciting for the future of IP development?

We’ve looked in many places.  Without being too specific, there’s a lot of great markets in Asia, China especially and the Middle East.  Those are areas that have our significant attention.  We’ve had the good fortune to have a couple of projects in Europe, which is a mature market but were excited about it.  Asia is very great opportunity with growing economies.  We’ve also had some success in the Middle East, particularly with our hotel projects, and we’d like to expand that into successes in the theme park and attraction world as well.

We looked many years ago at Brazil and Argentina but there’s not as much development going on in those markets right now as there is in Asia and the Middle East.  Perhaps after the World Cup is finished.  Like on the UK project, after the Olympics there’s all this infrastructure in place now to be capitalised on.  I think Brazil and Argentina are interesting opportunities.


Again, don't miss the full interview on Blooloop HERE as Mark talks about others Paramount projects including hotels and others attractions!