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Entertainment & Arts

No Universal Studios Theme Park in China

By Richard Verrier

Universal Studios has pulled the plug on a proposed theme park in China and laid off 30 employees who had been working on the project, a company spokesman said.

The fate of the theme park had been in doubt for months. Universal had plans to build a $1-billion theme park in Shanghai, but the venture, set to open in 2006, was never given approvals by the central government in China.

It also faced skepticism from Universal’s new cost-conscious corporate parent, General Electric Co.

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The layoffs leave Universal’s theme park design group in Orlando, Fla., and Los Angeles with about 45 employees, down from more than 100 a year ago.

-- Richard Verrier

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Richard Verrier

Richard Verrier is investigations editor for Arts and Entertainment at the Los Angeles Times. He has been with The Times since 2001 and has run our Company Town since 2016. After stints at the St. Petersburg Times and the Orlando Sentinel in Florida, Verrier joined the paper as a reporter, and for many years covered all aspects of the entertainment industry before turning to editing. He oversees the Company Town coverage while working to guide and edit investigative and enterprise reporting across the entertainment team, collaborating with writers and editors from all departments. He is a native of Montreal and a graduate from the University of Toronto and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

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