Film industry plans film city

Disneyland at your doorstep!
The Times of India

Bangalore: You don’t need to spend your hard earned rupee to see Hollywood anymore: Disneyland will shortly be at your doorstep!
Along the lines of Warner Bros and Universal Studios, the Kannada film industry is proposing a amusement parkcum-hi-tech film city for Bangalore. Location: 325 acres earmarked at Hesarghatta that has been awaiting the film city since 1974.

“We’re going in for a Disneylandtype film city. It will have everything needed for shooting and be a major tourist draw,’’ Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce (KFCC) president H.D. Gangaraju said.

Plans on the drawing board look exciting — imposing studios with varied sets where all kinds of film shooting can take place, a fullyequipped golf course, a yoga centre, a five-star hotel, a rain forest...! And a la Warner Bros/Universal Studios, guided tours of shooting and sets for film fans.

Drawn up by the Maharashtra Industries Corporation, SICON, and a private firm, the new film city blueprint was presented to the state government on April 2. The intention is: Going one up on the Ramoji Rao Film City outside Hyderabad, the Maharashtra film city in Mumbai and the newly set up film city in Chennai, courtesy their film star-chief minister J. Jayalalithaa.

“Our city will sustain itself with tourism and a proposed investment tie-up with Hollywood studios,’’ Gangaraju said.
The industry is keen on a selfsustaining film city for all its needs. “Today, the drive from R.T. Nagar to J.P. Nagar is maddening. It will be bliss to complete a film in one area,’’ producer-director Rajendra Singh Babu said.
Such plans have been on the anvil for over 30 years, when the film city was first proposed.