With no large-scale resort projects completed in the last three years, the market has been consumed by the news that new venues will be operational from this year. First out of the traps will be Melco Crown Entertainment’s Studio City, which is preparing an advertising blitz.

Melco Crown will release a short film starring Hollywood megastars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Robert De Niro directed by Martin Scorsese, an Academy Award-winning Best Director who is no stranger to commercial ‘shorts’, which is expected to focus international attention on Macau.

In August last year, the three stars and Martin Scorsese revealed that they would produce a short film - titled ‘The Interview’ - for Studio City. A Melco Crown Entertainment spokesperson said that the short film primarily records the development of the Macau tourism industry and the construction process of Studio City.

Studio City - with 1,600 hotel rooms and an intended 400-500 gaming tables - is slated to open in this year. Themed around the movies, and already taking shape as an art deco 1930s-meets-modern structure, the US$2.3 billion (approximately HK$17.9 billion) complex is a Hollywood-inspired creation that seeks to help ‘diversify’ the entertainment menu on offer to visitors.

Studio City’s 30,000 square-foot Family Entertainment Centre is a collaboration between Time Warner Inc. subsidiaries Warner Bros. and DC Comics. Highlighted at the recent unveiling ceremony, the Entertainment Centre is said to feature popular DC Comics characters such as Superman, Wonder Woman and The Flash. Visitors will be able to take a virtual reality Batman ride in the resort, as well as clambering aboard a 130 metre-tall Ferris wheel, reputedly Asia’s tallest.

The resort will also feature a 5,000-seat multi-purpose venue for performances and top sporting events, a TV broadcasting studio, a magician’s stage, plus a 300,000 square-foot mall and nightclub under the Pacha brand made famous in Spain.

In a recent press conference, CEO Lawrence Ho said: “We are positioning it to be more mass focus because we expect people to cross the Lotus Bridge, and literally walk thirty seconds and you are at Studio City . . . Given the product, we’re really trying to make it more mass; but given what we build there, it’s still - to be honest - more premium than a lot of the resorts in Cotai right now. So there’s going to be a strong premium component to it.”

Ho further stressed that “it’s time to rebalance” the gaming industry from its reliance on junket revenue to embracing the mass market, and that Melco is “very happy” about the trend, saying: “Ten years ago when we did the IPO for Melco Crown on Nasdaq, I was telling people that mass was going to take over. Now, I’m early by seven years with my prediction that’s coming true, and ultimately with the rise of the middle class in China and their consumption, that’s really the future of Macau and all gaming markets.”

“Don’t forget that after we’re done with the phase one of Studio City, there’s still phase two. We’ve only built the land on two thirds of the size,” he said, adding that the future construction on the rest of the land will depend on the approval of minority shareholders.

Lawrence Ho claimed that Studio City will provide the “next generation of outstanding entertainment-driven leisure destination experiences” that will help Macau evolve into a more diversified economy. He also called on Macau to nurture new growth areas and to turn the city into a World Centre for Tourism and Leisure. Melco Crown expects to hire between 8,000 and 10,000 workers for Studio City.