Developer Su Shaojun, president of Seven Stars Investment Group, was inspired to build a replica of the famous ship The Titanic after watching the film over 20 years ago. Su Shaojun is also building a theme park based around the ship which he claims will feature the “Worlds Largest Indoor Beach.”
The ship was set to be delivered on August 30, 2017 but is far from finished. This 1,000 feet long by 92 feet wide ship requires over 23,000 tons of steel and hundreds of workers to complete.
“I didn’t expect the ship would be this big,” says Su Shaojun, “The movie didn’t mention how big it was.” Su, a fan of James Cameron’s 1997 Titanic Film, is president of Seven Star Energy Investment Group in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, in southern eastern China.
“I wanted to build a resort, Su explains, “but I didn’t want to copy others and make it just another theme park. I wanted to build one that has cultural depth to it.”
“I thought rebuilding the Titanic would be meaningful,” says Su, “It was very touching to see people give others the chance to live” -his favorite part of the film.
Su Shaojun was also inspired to help establish The Titanic Foundations, whose goal is to help ocean disaster relief efforts worldwide.
Construction of the ship replica theme park began back in 2014 after Su secured a loan on nearly $200 million from Zheshang commercial bank and worked out a property deal with the local government of Daying.
“Why am I so confident of its success?” Su asks, “First, people from all over know the Titanic. Second, Daying is in between two cities with 20 million people each, Chengdu and Chongqing. The person who designed China’s Disneyland came here and said we’d have more visitors than them.”
