Hollywood amusement park soon in Mumbai

India’s commercial capital is all set to welcome Hollywood. The Maharashtra government has signed on the dotted line to put in place a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Hollywood law firm to identify possible partners for investment, planning and design of the planned Hollywood amusement park in Mumbai's Film City.

It is learnt that the MoU calls for a state-of-the-art township that will boast of movie studios, a theme park, hotels, movie museum and shopping malls. The agreement was singed in Los Angeles during Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh's visit to New York in mid-July 2007. With Bollywood making close to a 1,000 films ever year, Mumbai is seen by the outside world as India’s capital of the entertainment business.

The Maharashtra Chief Minister, who is currently on a visit to the US to see investment for various projects and also to seek out possible investors in various sectors including information technology, infrastructure and manufacturing, has made this dream of an amusement park possible. The MoU was signed by Bhushan Gagrani, secretary, culture and tourism and managing director of Film City, for the Maharashtra Government and Clark Siegel of Irell and Manella LLP, a law firm which represents several Hollywood studios, including Dream Works, Universal and Disney.