“October Fools! – Just Kidding About the Movie Studio in China”

And I just made a big deal about the news that AOL Time Warner planned to build a $483 million movie studio in China, viewing it as the “end of the cultural revolution.” Just kidding:

A spokeswoman for Warner Bros. on Monday said a report from China’s official Xinhua news agency saying the U.S. movie studio was considering building a film studio and tourist attraction in China was false.

“This is totally untrue. We have no idea where this comes from,” Warner Bros. spokesperson Barbara Brogliatti said.

Warner Bros., based in the Los Angeles area suburb of Burbank, is a unit of the world’s No. 1 media company, AOL Time Warner Inc. Xinhua issued a report on Friday saying the media company planned to invest $483 million to build the facility, and added that company executives had toured Linan city in eastern China in a trip aimed at finding a suitable location.

The obvious question is where did Xinhua get this information and why didn’t they clear it with Warners? Or if it is true, why is Warners denying it?

UPDATE
But if Warners won’t do it, Sony will:

Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony Corp plans to spend about $100 million to make movies in China over the next three years, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Sony Chief Executive Nobuyuki Idei had announced the plans during a visit to the Chinese capital on Monday, said Li Xi, a spokeswoman at the company’s office in Beijing.

“In the next three years, Sony will invest about $100 million in the Chinese movie industry,” Li said. “That will be mainly in production.”

The Shanghai Daily, a state-run English-language newspaper, quoted Idei as saying Sony would shoot an average of five movies a year in China.