Warner Bros to Build ‘Harry Potter Studio Tour' with Chinese Group in Shanghai
Jinjiang said in a social media post that the proposed amusement park would give visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the Harry Potter films and recreate well-known scenes. It will cover an area of over 53,000 square meters.
The project will be part of a large-scale renovation of a Shanghai theme park that Jinjiang operates and is due to open in 2027. The plans are still subject to regulatory approval.
It would mark Warner Bros' third "Harry Potter Studio Tour" worldwide after sites in London and Tokyo.
The Harry Potter franchise is incredibly popular in China, a country where foreign films make up a relatively small percentage of the country's total box office due to strict quotas and a shift to local content.
A Universal Studios theme park in Beijing features "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter", a section dedicated to Harry Potter-themed rides and attractions. The eight Harry Potter films were also re-released in Chinese cinemas last year.
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Saudi Gazette
5 days ago
- Saudi Gazette
A massacre on the eve of WW2 still haunts China-Japan relations
TOKYO – Japanese vlogger Hayato Kato's 1.9 million followers are used to his funny clips about exploring China, where he has been living for several years. But on 26 July he surprised them with a sombre one. "I just watched a movie about the Nanjing Massacre," he said, referring to the Japanese army's six-week rampage through Nanjing in late 1937, which, by some estimates, killed more than 300,000 civilians and Chinese soldiers. Around 20,000 women were reportedly raped. Dead To Rights, or Nanjing Photo Studio, is a star-studded tale about a group of civilians who hide from Japanese troops in a photo studio. Already a box office hit, it is the first of a wave of Chinese movies about the horrors of Japanese occupation that are being released to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two. But a sense of unfinished history – often amplified by Beijing – persists, fuelling both memory and anger. Speaking in Chinese on Douyin, China's domestic version of TikTok, Kato recounted scenes from the film: "People were lined up along the river and then the shootings began... A baby, the same age as my daughter, was crying in her mother's arms. A Japanese soldier rushed forward, grabbed her, and smashed her into the ground." He said he had seen many people on the Japanese internet denying the Nanjing Massacre had happened, including public figures, even politicians. "If we deny it, this will happen again," he continued, urging Japanese people to watch the movies and "Iearn about the dark side of their history".The video quickly became one of his most popular, with more than 670,000 likes in just two the comments are less positive. The top-liked one quotes what has already become an iconic line from the movie, uttered by a Chinese civilian to a Japanese soldier: "We are not friends. We never were."For China, Japan's brutal military campaign and occupation are among the darkest chapters of its past – and the massacre in Nanjing, then the capital, an even deeper has made it fester is the belief that Japan has never fully owned up to its atrocities in places it occupied – not just China, but also Korea, what was then Malaya, Philippines, Indonesia. One of the most painful points of contention involves "comfort women" – the approximately 200,000 women who were raped and forced to work in Japanese military brothels. To this day, the survivors are still fighting for an apology and his video, Kato seems to acknowledge that it's not a subject of conversation in Japan: "Unfortunately these anti-Japanese war movies are not shown in Japan publicly, and Japanese people are not interested to watch them."When the Japanese Emperor announced on 15 August that he would surrender, his country had already paid a terrible cost – more than 100,000 had been killed in bombing raids on Tokyo, before two atom bombs devastated Hiroshima and defeat, however, was welcomed in large parts of Asia, where the Imperial Japanese Army had claimed million of lives. For them, 15 August carries both freedom and lingering trauma – in Korea the day is called 'gwangbokjeol', which translates to the return of light."While the military war has ended, the history war continues," says Professor Gi-Wook Shin, of Stanford University, explaining the two sides remember those years differently, and those differences add to the tension. While the Chinese see Japanese aggression as a defining, and devastating, moment in their past, Japanese history focuses on its own victimhood – the destruction caused by the atom bombs and post-war recovery."People I know in Japan don't really talk about it," says a Chinese man who has been living in Japan for 15 years, and wished to remain anonymous."They see it as something in the past, and the country doesn't really commemorate it – because they also view themselves as victims."He calls himself a patriot, but he says that hasn't made things difficult for him personally because their reluctance to talk about it means they "avoid such sensitive topics"."Some believe the Japanese army went to help China build a new order – with conflicts occurring in that process. Of course, there are also those who acknowledge that it was, in fact, an invasion."China fought Japan for eight years, from Manchuria in the north-east to Chongqing in the south-west. Estimates of those killed range from 10 to 20 million. The Japanese government says around 480,000 of its soldiers died in that years have been well-documented in award-winning literature and films – they were also the subject of Nobel laureate Mo Yan's period is now being revisited under a regime that holds patriotism as central to its ambitions: "national rejuvenation" is how Xi Jinping describes his Chinese dream. While the Party heavily censors its own history, from the Tiananmen Square massacre to more recent crackdowns, it encourages remembering a more distant past – with an outside even revised the date the war with Japan started – the Chinese government now counts the first incursions into Manchuria in 1931, which makes it a 14-year war, rather than eight years of full-fledged him, Beijing has also been commemorating the end of World War Two on a bigger scale. On 3 September, the day Japan formally surrendered, there will be a major military parade in Tiananmen in September, a highly-anticipated new release will focus on the notorious Unit 731, a branch of the Japanese Army that conducted lethal human experiments in occupied Manchuria. The date of release – 18 September – is the day Japan attempted its first invasion of is apart from Dongji Rescue, a film inspired by the real-life efforts of Chinese fishermen who saved hundreds of British prisoners of war during Japanese raids; and Mountains and Rivers Bearing Witness, a documentary from a state-owned studio about Chinese resistance."That one generation fought a war on behalf of three, and endured suffering for three. Salute to the martyrs," a popular RedNote post on Nanjing Photo Studio reads."We are not friends...", the now-famous line from the movie, "is not just a line" between the two main characters, says a popular review that has been liked by more than 10,000 users on is "also from millions of ordinary Chinese people to Japan. They've never issued a sincere apology, they are still worshipping [the war criminals], they are rewriting history – no-one will treat them as friends", the comment says, referring to some Japanese right-wing figures' dismissive has issued apologies, but many Chinese people believe they are not profuse enough."Japan keeps sending a conflicting message," Prof Shin says, referring to instances where leaders have contradicted each other in their statements on Japan's wartime years, in Chinese history classes, students have been shown a photo of former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling before a memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1970. The Chinese expect a similar gesture from wasn't always the case, Japan surrendered in 1945, the turbulence in China did not end. For the next three years, the Nationalist Kuomintang – then the ruling government and the main source of Chinese resistance against Japan – fought a civil war against Mao Zedong's Communist Party war ended with Mao's victory and the Kuomintang's retreat to Taiwan. Mao, whose priority was to build a communist nation, avoided focusing on Japanese war crimes. Commemorations celebrated the Party's victory and criticised the Kuomintang. He also needed Japan's support on the international stage. Tokyo, in fact, was one of the first major powers to recognise his wasn't until the 1980s – after Mao's death – that the Japanese occupation returned to haunt the relationship between Beijing and Tokyo. By then, Japan was a wealthy Western ally with a booming economy. Revisions to Japanese textbooks began to spark controversy, with China and South Korea accusing Japan of whitewashing its wartime atrocities. China had just begun to open up, and South Korea was in transition from military rule to Chinese leaders moved away from Mao – and his destructive legacy – the trauma of what happened under Japanese attack became a unifying narrative for the Communist Party, says Yinan He, associate professor of international relations at Lehigh University in the US."After the Cultural Revolution, Chinese people for the large part were disillusioned by communism," she told the BBC. "Since communism lost its appeal, you need nationalism. And Japan is [an] easy target because that's the most recent external [aggressor]."She describes a "choreographed representation of the past", where commemorations of 1945 often downplay the contributions of the US and the Kuomintang, and are accompanied by growing scrutiny of Japan's official stance on its wartime hasn't helped is the denial of war crimes – prominent right-wing Japanese don't accept the Nanjing massacre ever happened, or that Japanese soldiers forced so many women into sexual slavery – and recent visits by officials to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan's war dead, including convicted war hostility between China and Japan has spilled over into everyday lives as nationalism online peaks – Chinese and Japanese people have been attacked in each other's countries. A Japanese schoolboy was killed in Shenzhen last economic rise and assertiveness in the region and beyond has changed the dynamic between the two countries again. It has surpassed Japan as a global power. The best time to seek closure – the 1970s, when the countries were closer – has passed, Prof He says."They simply said, let's forget about that, let's set that aside. They've never dealt with the history – and now the problem has come back to haunt them again." – BBC
Al Arabiya
26-07-2025
- Al Arabiya
Comic-con goes interstellar with 'Project Hail Mary,' 'Star trek' updates
Comic-Con is headed to space for its third day. Saturday's biggest presentations at the pop culture extravaganza will be for Project Hail Mary, which stars Ryan Gosling on an interstellar mission to save humanity, and for the next series in the Star Trek franchise. Fans are also getting a sneak peek at Coyote vs. ACME, a hybrid live-action and animated project that was shelved by Warner Bros. in a cost-cutting move but will get a theatrical release in 2026. The movie features John Cena, who is also a star of the DC series Peacemaker, which will have a presentation Saturday in Comic-Con's massive Hall H. Project Hail Mary is an adaptation of the book by Martin Weir, whose book The Martian was adapted by Ridley Scott in 2015. An estimated 135,000 people – many in costumes – are expected to attend Comic-Con 2025, which runs through Sunday in downtown San Diego. So far, fans have gotten previews of Five Nights at Freddy's 2, the upcoming FX series Alien: Earth, and Predator: Badlands, which will be in theaters in November. Coyote vs. Acme, coming to theaters in August 2026, Wile E. Coyote is getting his day in court – and theaters. The stars of Coyote vs. Acme delivered a rousing presentation of a movie that at one point wasn't going to be released. The underdog story – both of the movie and Coyote – was a running theme of the panel. But rather than direct ire at Warner Bros., the real-world studio that shelved the project, the panel focused on the fictional Acme Corp. 'This is purely an Acme decision… and I am saying this for legal purposes,' moderator Paul Scheer said at the start of the panel. The movie is a hybrid of animation and live action and is based on a 1990 New Yorker article that satirized a legal complaint filed by Coyote against Acme, the maker of the TNT detonators, rocket shoes, catapults, and other products that consistently backfire during the Coyote's fruitless attempts to catch the Roadrunner. Laughter filled Hall H, the massive 6,000-seat venue, as fans watched a montage of Coyote being blown up, flattened, and falling into chasms in a scene set to Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt. Coyote is replaying the moments in his lair when an ad for a personal injury lawyer appears on TV. They also played six minutes of the movie, including a scene of opening statements in the case in which Coyote's lawyer, Will Forte, accidentally unleashes a rocket skate into the courtroom, setting Coyote and the judge's robes on fire. John Cena plays a slick Acme lawyer who wins over the jury, which includes a cartoon character, quickly. Forte said he didn't think the movie would ever get to audiences. 'I'm pretty speechless. You think back to the journey that this movie has taken. I had kind of given up hope at a certain point,' Forte said. At one point, his comments were interrupted by a man playing an Acme lawyer who stormed into Hall H with cease-and-desist letters. Director Dave Green said the movie conforms to famed animator Chuck Jones' rules for the struggle between the Coyote and Roadrunner, which include the bird always staying on the road and the Coyote being ultimately more humiliated than hurt when he falls, is crushed, or gets blown up by TNT. The movie, which features cameos from numerous Looney Tunes characters like Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety, and Bugs Bunny, will be released on Aug. 28, 2026. Ketchup Entertainment teamed up with Warner Bros. on the film and in the release of The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.
Saudi Gazette
16-07-2025
- Saudi Gazette
Harry Potter actress Emma Watson banned from driving for speeding
LONDON — Harry Potter actress Emma Watson has been banned from driving for six months, after she was caught speeding. Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the film franchise, drove 38mph in a 30mph zone in Oxford on the evening of 31 July last year. Watson already had nine points on her licence before the speeding incident occurred, the court heard. The 35-year-old, now a student, was made to pay a total of £1,044 at High Wycombe Magistrates' Court on Wednesday. She did not attend the five-minute hearing. Representatives for Watson have been approached for comment. The actress has been studying a master's degree in creative writing at the University of Oxford since 2023. Watson shot to fame in 2001 with the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, alongside fellow child stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint. She starred in eight Potter films in total, with the last being released in 2011, before going on to appear in movies such as Beauty and the Beast, The Bling Ring and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Watson's last film role was in the 2019 remake of Little Women, directed by Greta Gerwig. She launched her own sustainable gin brand with her brother in 2023. A new TV adaptation of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books is currently in production, starring Dominic McLaughlin as Harry, alongside Arabella Stanton as Hermione and Alastair Stout as Ron. John Lithgow has been cast as Dumbledore, Nick Frost as Hagrid, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall and Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape. The series, being produced by HBO, is expected to take a decade to complete. Separately, another Harry Potter actress, Zoe Wanamaker, was fined for speeding on the same day and in the same court as Watson. Wanamaker, who played Madam Hooch in the wizarding series, was caught speeding on 7 August 2024, on the M4 in Newbury, Berkshire. The 76-year-old was driving at 46mph in a 40mph limit, the court heard. She was also fined £1,044 and banned for six months. Wanamaker's lawyer Duncan Jones said that she was not asking for "special treatment" and accepted the fine. Like Watson, Wanamaker had nine points on her licence before the speeding incident occurred. District Judge Arvind Sharma, sentencing, endorsed three more points on both stars' licences, meaning both are disqualified for six months. — BBC
