DICK CLARK - ABU DHABI PLANS TO FUND HOLLYWOOD MOVIES

ABU DHABI PLANS TO FUND HOLLYWOOD MOVIES

Abu Dhabi, often called the richest city in the world, plans to use $1 billion of its oil wealth to invest in movie productions over the next five years, Edward Borgerding, CEO of Abu Dhabi Media Company has told the London Financial Times . He said that the company has set up a company called imagenation abu dhabi (like Hollywood's dick clark company, all lowercase) that plans to become one of the world's largest film producers and compete with nearby Dubai to become a media center for the Gulf region. The FT noted, however, that the emirate imposes strict content controls on Hollywood movies shown there. With financing from private equity groups and hedge funds disappearing, Hollywood studios are likely to compete fiercely for imagenation's attention.

03/09/2008