Fox Opens Movie Park in Baja

In a town better known for sand and surf, the latest lure is celluloid.

Fox Studios Baja, which brought the world “Titanic,” opened its new movie theme park Sunday, giving visitors an inside look at the making of films--including that romantic blockbuster, whose value as a marketing hook here has seemed, well, unsinkable.

The park, called Foxploration, is modest in size (with seven acres and room for 3,000 visitors) and in thrill potential (there are no rides--nary a turning teacup). To prevent inflated expectations, the studio is taking pains to distinguish the park from bigger, more famous and ride-heavy cousins, such as Universal Studios. (At $12 for adult admission, Foxploration is a lot cheaper.)

Executives even hesitate to call it a theme park.

“We’re somewhere between an interactive science museum and something that’s undefined,” said Charlie Arneson, general manager of Fox Studios Baja. “For lack of a better word, we’re calling it a movie park, because it’s about making movies. We’re something completely different.”

A hands-on exhibit called Cinemagico, for example, gives away secrets of the film business, revealing how optical illusions, robotic machines and sound effects are employed.

Jose Luis Manzano, a Tijuana construction worker, snapped pictures as his two sons and a nephew pretended to hoist themselves up the side of a skyscraper. The boys, ages 2 to 5, had come expecting rides, Manzano said. But the trio appeared unfazed by that as they screeched while clamoring inside a fake airplane cockpit, their images projected on a television screen.

Elsewhere, there is a faux New York City street--to be used in future productions--and an on-site screening room. Arrayed throughout are props from Fox films elsewhere, including a restored fountain from the 1969 movie “Hello Dolly” and a guillotine from last year’s “Quills.”

But there was no mistaking the star of this show. Guides offer tours in English and Spanish around a 19,000-square-foot “Titanic Expo,” which brims with props and sets: lifeboats, furniture, mock shipboard salons and engines and, attached to a pipe, “authentic” handcuffs that tethered the Leonardo DiCaprio character, Jack.

James and Jean Baird, who consider themselves “semi-movie fanatics,” stopped by during a weekend visit to Rosarito with relatives. The Mission Viejo residents looked forward to a peek behind “Titanic.”

“We saw the movie. How can they top that?” James Baird asked.

Foxploration grew out of the seaside studio, which was built by 20th Century Fox to film “Titanic” in 1996. The steady flow of the curious prompted studio officials to open a small “Titanic” museum to display some props and equipment from the film.

The museum drew about 180,000 visitors--half from Mexico, half from the United States--and suggested an appetite for a bigger showcase, studio executives said. “People were really anxious to know about the film industry. People who visited the [museum] wanted more,” said Hugo Bailon, Foxploration’s general manager.

Baja California tourism officials see Foxploration, about 20 miles south of the U.S. border, as a way to draw more family visitors to Rosarito--a mecca for spring break revelers and a magnet on many summer weekends for youthful U.S. visitors in search of drink specials and inexpensive beach hotels.

The park could help boost off-season visits, or, as in the case of the Bairds, inspire an impromptu highway stop, officials say.

Tour companies are looking into ferrying busloads of cruise-ship passengers on day trips from Ensenada, said Juan Tintos Funcke, tourism secretary for the state of Baja California.

Rosarito had 1.1 million overnight stays last year, up slightly from the previous two years. But officials worry that a cooling economy north of the border could dampen visits to Baja California.

Foxploration represents partial fulfillment of the border state’s Tinseltown-style aspirations. The “Titanic” experience prompted Baja officials to begin seriously marketing local beaches, deserts and mountains as other potential filming locations.

“We think Foxploration will generate more awareness of filmmaking here,” Tintos said. He noted that the next closest Mexican movie studio is 1,450 miles away in Mexico City. Although the number of films, television shows and commercials made in Baja California quadrupled to 41 in four years, the cash and jobs generated by movie making have never come close to the levels reached during 1996, when “Titanic” accounted for much of the $13 million that filming pumped into local tourism.

(The most successful movie made in the border region since then, “Traffic,” depicted Tijuana in certain segments, but scenes were shot in Nogales, across the border from Arizona.)

Baja officials hope that the Rosarito studio, which has been used in about 10 films, will soon get to claim a piece of another box-office behemoth. The studio’s giant water tanks, employed for “Titanic,” were used to shoot part of the upcoming “Pearl Harbor.” A ship’s bow and propeller from the movie already are on display at the park.

Although film novices seemed to enjoy the chance to work mechanical shark jaws or make their own cartoons, even movie insiders offered the park an early thumbs up.

“This has great potential for Baja--potential for the region,” said Ruben Arvizu, who owns a film-dubbing company in Los Angeles. “You educate people. This is the kind of tourism you want.”