Universal to bring King Kong, Spider-Man to South Korea

By Kim Soyoung

SEOUL (Reuters) - King Kong and Spider-man are coming to South Korea.

Universal Studios said on Tuesday it would build a South Korean park featuring characters from blockbuster movies by 2012, becoming the latest Hollywood firm to expand in Asia's burgeoning entertainment market.

The project, announced a day after U.S. film giant Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) unveiled a plan for a Shanghai park, highlights Hollywood's push to take the world's most popular entertainment to the world's most populous region.

Asia's theme park industry accounts for nearly half of the global $23.5 billion market and is expected to see a 25 percent jump in visitor numbers by 2010, according to research firm Euromonitor.

"We want to put you side by side with your favorite heroes," Thomas Williams, Chairman and CEO of Universal Studios Parks & Resorts, told a news conference in Seoul.

"Korea has grown into an attractive market in many necessary and critical aspects for theme park and resort development in terms of income, population, consumer interest and growth of the entertainment industry," he said, adding that the Seoul park could be larger than its Hollywood and Japan ventures.

The plan puts Universal on a collision course with long established theme park operators Everland and Lotte World, owned by two of South Korea's top conglomerates -- Samsung Group and Lotte Group.

Over 8.2 million people, or one out of every six South Koreans, visited Everland in 2006, making the park owned by Samsung Group the third busiest in Asia after Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan.