Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., a leading U.S. filmmaking company, plans to open a Harry Potter theme park in central Tokyo by the spring of 2023, it has been learned.
Warner Bros. plans to construct the park on part of land that is currently occupied by the soon-to-be-closed Toshimaen Amusement Park in Nerima Ward, Tokyo.
Warner Bros. will lease a portion of the almost 20-hectare land, which is owned by Seibu Group, while the Tokyo metropolitan government will buy the rest of the land from Seibu to develop a large-scale park. The existing amusement facilities and swimming pools of Toshimaen will gradually close one by one. Negotiations are underway between Warner Bros., Seibu Group, the Tokyo metropolitan government, and others -- with a decision expected to be formally made by this spring.
The content of the theme park is being discussed, with reference to Warner Bros.' filmmaking studio in London where visitors can tour the studio sets that were actually used for the making of the Harry Potter films. On this tour, visitors can stroll through the sets, including those of the Great Hall of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; the shopping street of Diagon Alley; and the Platform of the Hogwarts Express locomotive. They can also see movie props up close, including magic wands. This is referred to as a studio-type facility, which is different from those of Universal Studios in the United States or Universal Studios Japan (USJ) in Osaka, where rides and attractions are also available.
Toshimaen opened in 1926 and has been a leading amusement park in central Tokyo. It comprises amusement facilities, swimming pools, hot spa facilities and so forth. After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the Tokyo metropolitan government decided on a plan to build a large-scale park as part of its disaster-prevention measures. The government offered to purchase the land from Seibu, but the negotiations have been stagnated in recent years. According to sources concerned, Warner Bros., with a proposal of creating the Harry Potter theme park, joined the negotiations around last year, which has gotten the talks moving again.
Harry Potter is a story authored by a British writer, with a boy wizard as one of the main characters. It was published in 1997 in Britain, and its Japanese translation was published in 1999 in Japan. As the story became a global hit, Warner Bros. made a screen version of the story in 2001. Sequels of both the story and the film have been made.
At USJ, about 45 billion yen was injected into the opening of the Harry Potter facilities in 2014. The number of visitors to USJ in fiscal 2014 totaled 12.7 million, up 2 million from a year earlier. As USJ is also fairly popular among foreign visitors to Japan, it has become a centerpiece of sightseeing tours in the Kansai region.
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