As Sam Worthington leapt and dived through Pandora's lush tropical forests via his virtual reality suit, Avatar often felt more like a theme park ride than a coherent film. Just two years after the most successful movie ever was made, most people would struggle to explain the plot, but they could probably remember how it looked in groundbreaking 3D.
Not that such spectacularly odd storytelling - technology developed by a mining company helps one man fall in love with a 10ft alien and take on that same company - prevented James Cameron's eco-action film becoming the highest grossing film of all time. There will be two more instalments, we learnt this time last year. There is already a video game, even a set of French stamps. And so it came as little surprise when Walt Disney Company announced last week that it, too, intend to cash in on our strange interest in the lives of oppressed blue humanoids from outer space by constructing the first Avatar theme park in Orlando, Florida.
Precious little details of the attraction have been released at this stage - we presume that the US$400m (Dh1.5bn) project will offer visitors slightly more than a trip around verdant treetops while someone in a 10ft blue costume babbles unintelligible Na'vi in the background. For his part, Cameron said in a statement that the goal was to "go beyond current boundaries of technical innovation and experiential storytelling, and give park-goers the chance to see, hear and touch the world of Avatar with an unprecedented sense of reality".
All of which means, well, very little really. Except we presume we won't actually be seeing the world of Avatar - since that was a studio with a massive motion capture stage and very powerful computers.
Disney, meanwhile, preferred business-speak. "We think we can clearly leverage the global interest in this property," said the chief executive, Bob Iger, at the launch.
All of which means we can probably expect Avatarland to be rolled out in Disney parks across the world. And it's the moneymaking potential of the "property" which is important here. Major new theme parks or attractions are rarely proposed these days without the backing of a big name. Sometimes this is a book - witness the staggering success of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at the Universal Studios resort in Orlando. It can be a car company, in the case of Ferrari World right on our doorstep. It might even be a plastic building brick beloved of children in the case of Legoland. But most of all, it's the blockbuster movie that dominates the theme park experience in the 21st century.
Of course, this is hardly a new phenomenon: Disneyland, a theme park featuring Walt Disney film characters, opened in California in 1955. But confirmation that film fans would flock to experience their favourite movies first hand came with the development of Universal Studios Hollywood into a major tourist attraction.
It had been open to the public for decades, but by 1991 had turned from a simple tram-ride around some of their famous film sets into a ride-filled pleasureland promising a trip into the worlds of ET and Jaws.
And yet these rides can't possibly hope to recreate those films. Visiting Universal Studios some time ago, Back to the Future: The Ride felt exactly what it was: a slightly jerky motion simulator with a creaky plot. It was actually more interesting to see some of the actual props - including the famous Delorean car - parked outside. Jurassic Park, in theme park world, became a log flume ride with some pretty mechanical-looking dinosaurs. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter did actually promise something more akin to life as a Hogwarts student. But some of the magic was taken away by the choking queues.
Perhaps it's a little churlish to be so critical - these are, after all, throwaway pieces of entertainment aimed squarely at children. The delight in a young Harry Potter fan's eyes when a wand "chooses" them in The Wizarding World is something to behold - although their parents are likely to be less impressed when ushered towards the shop to purchase said wand for $30. Would those same parents really be excited by theme parks based on more mature films? Of course not - although a ride based on the recent Oscar winner The Hurt Locker might set pulses racing just a little.
So it'll be interesting to see what Disney and James Cameron come up with for Avatar, particularly when Cameron is promising "an unprecedented sense of reality". That's some log flume ride.
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Graduated from the American University of Sharjah
She is the eldest of three brothers and two sisters
Has helped solve 15 cases of electric shocks
Enjoys travelling, reading and horse riding
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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