IT IS not exactly the most glamorous place to build a film studio. Qingdao, a sooty industrial port along China’s north-eastern coast that was once colonised by the Germans, is better known as the home of Haier, the world’s biggest maker of domestic appliances, and Tsingtao, a leading Chinese brewery, than as a crucible of the creative arts. And yet this is where the country’s richest man is building China’s answer to Hollywood.

Wang Jianlin, the boss of Dalian Wanda, a Chinese multinational that made its money in the property business, clearly wants to be a media mogul. Last year his firm acquired AMC Theaters, an American cinema chain, for $2.6 billion. In June it also agreed to buy Sunseeker, a British yacht-maker whose sleek craft have featured in James Bond films. He has just made a $20m donation to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which runs the Oscars award ceremonies.

But his boldest move came at a red-carpet ceremony in Qingdao on September 22nd featuring such Hollywood stars as Nicole Kidman, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Travolta and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Mr Wang announced plans to build a 50 billion yuan ($8.2 billion) entertainment complex. The massive project, dubbed the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis, would include 20 film studios, cinemas, a theme park, hotels and wax museums. If all goes to plan, it will be open by mid-2017.

By luring stars and producers to China (it is rumoured that his firm spent tens of millions of dollars on this glitzy event), Dalian Wanda is hoping to persuade American studios to enter into film-making collaborations. They may have to tailor their offerings to please state censors, but there are powerful incentives at work too.

Foreign studios are drooling at the prospect of gaining more access to the booming Chinese film market, whose ticket sales rose by over a third last year to $2.7 billion. At the moment, the government strictly limits the number of foreign films that may be released in mainland cinemas each year. By getting into bed with Mr Wang, whose firm wields a lot of political clout (and also owns around 6,000 screens across China), they are hoping to gain much greater access.

Dalian Wanda’s ambitions extend beyond that, though. The firm signed deals with several Western talent agencies representing prominent writers, producers, actors and directors, hoping they will help it come up with co-productions that benefit from a sprinkling of Hollywood magic. In time, Mr Wang wants his Qingdao studios to make films that will become blockbusters not just inside China, but globally.

Will Mr Wang become the Middle Kingdom’s answer to Howard Hughes? “There is no single company in the whole world that has a big-scale production base, and at the same time has screening and distribution channels,” he declared grandly. “Wanda Group is the first one in the world.” Through Qingdao’s choking haze, watch this space.