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The complex, to be situated in Shanghai, will be a joint venture between DreamWorks Animation, which Katzenberg heads and Chinese investment fund CMC Capital Partners, and Hong Kong property developer Lan Kwai Fong.
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Jeffrey Katzenberg CEO of DreamWorks Animation took the wrappings of an ambitious project to be situated in the rapidly burgeoning business capital of China –Shanghai.
The new DreamCenter project to be built on a 40-acre site, which currently houses a derelict cement factory, will house eight outdoor event plazas as well a 500-seat IMAX cinema, a “Dream Avenue” theater district, which Katzenberg hopes will become Shanghai’s equivalent of London’s West End or New York City’s Broadway, backed up by a huge choice of bars, restaurants and performance venues.
Katzenberg is confident that when the site is completed in 2017 it will become host to a number of international film festivals as well as red carpet events.
In addition the new site will be the home of Oriental DreamWorks, a state-of-the-art production facility which is already slated to produce the next episode of the successful animated film franchise Kung Fu Panda as well as a long list of film, TV and online projects.
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The “DreamCenter, ” due to open in 2017, is ideally situated in the rest of this bustling city, close to the huge complex which housed the Shanghai Expo exhibition in 2010.
In addition to the DreamCenter, Shanghai, which is generally regarded as being China’s business capital, will also be home to Shanghai Disneyland, due to open its doors next year.
Jeffrey Katzenberg began his career in the media industry as assistant to Barry Diller, then the Chairman of Paramount Pictures.
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Diller obviously saw Katzenberg’ s potential, placing him in several key positions within the company despite his youth, until he was eventually given the difficult task of bringing some life into the Star Trek franchise, which Paramount owned. Katzenberg’s vision saw the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture which became a major hit for the studio in 1979 with just twenty-nine years old.
In 1984, Michael Eisner, left his job as President of Paramount Pictures to become (CEO) at The Walt Disney Company. Eisner knew that Katzenberg just the man to take charge of Disney’s ailing motion picture division.
Katzenberg pet project was a founding of Touchstone Pictures, really was responsible for such icons of the eighties as Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Good Morning, Vietnam. However it was at Disney that Katzenberg began to develop his interests in animation being behind some of the studio’s greatest hits as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.
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In1994, Katzenberg left Disney to co-found DreamWorks SKG in partnership with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, with Katzenberg given the role of being responsible for all of the studio’s animation operations where they enjoyed particular success with Shrek in 2001, and its follow-up Shrek 2 that was released in 2004.
In 2004, DreamWorks Animation parted company with the main DreamWorks operation, becoming a separate entity enjoying considerable growth and profitability since then.
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