Enchanted Kingdom plans to hit the animation industry

Although it is expensive to venture into the animation business, Philippines' established theme park developer Enchanted Kingdom Inc. plans to get into this profitable animation industry, making it the Philippine version of Walt Disney.

Initially, Enchanted Kingdom (EK) has already entered into the filmmaking industry, through the production of the movie "Exodus", but instead of making it an entire "cartoon" movie, EK chairman and president Mario O. Mamon said the company preferred to utilize "real" persons, or movie actors.

"It's more expensive to do animation than doing a real action film," Mamon said in an interview recently. But, he said EK is on its way to enter into this promising animation industry, after all, the world's animation industry is now largely taking advantage of Filipino animators.

For the meantime, Mamon said EK is pushing through mainly for the Enchanted Kingdom's Wizard story, being distributed in different media channels, such as Comic magazine form, movie, among others.

Later, when EK can strongly establish its name in the Philippines, as well as other countries, this might be the best time to invest into full animation venture.

According to Mamon, EK's first produced movie "Exodus" has now gained interest from foreign markets, as it has been receiving invitations for copyright deal.

"We are looking forward to do our second film this year," Mamon said in his recent visit to Cebu.

Aside from movie product, comic magazine ventures, he said that EK has also created other subsidiary companies to manufacture Enchanted Kingdom merchandizes, as part of building a strong brand.

Soon, EK products will be available in Cebu market, as the company is currently talking with a retail operator who expressed interest to bring in EK products to Cebu, like T-shirt, bags, wallet, caps, shorts, pillows, notepads, among others.

EK has also considered establishing the same theme park facility in Cebu to cater to the Visayas and Mindanao markets.

"We would like to expand to other markets in the Philippines, like the Visayas and Mindanao area, best location for the planned expansion is Cebu," he said.

Although, at this point in time, the expansion plan is still part of the company's short term goal, which means that realization of this plan would still take time.

"We are still trying to feel the market in the Southern Philippines. The reason why we are actively participating in all promotional activities done in Cebu, like travel fairs," Mamon said.

Mamon stressed that putting money for development of another theme park in this side of the country, in Southern Philippines is not an "easy" investment.

Ten years ago, when the company established the sprawling theme park in Laguna, Mamon said his company poured around P1.2 billion investment.