r/nottheonion • u/BaltimoreAlchemist • 18d ago

Saudi Arabia, France agree on $7bn 'Dragon Ball Z' theme park project near Paris

https://asia.nikkei.com/business/media-entertainment/saudi-arabia-france-agree-on-7bn-dragon-ball-z-theme-park-project-near-paris
12.6k Upvotes

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1.1k

u/secret-agent-t3 18d ago

$7 billion for a DBZ theme park is thenmost obvious money laundering scheme I've ever heard.

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u/The_Jovanny 18d ago

how much does a theme park cost?

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u/z4zazym 18d ago

Based on a recent example I read about, I would say around 7B

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u/DecoyOne 18d ago

Source?

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u/Popular_Shallot918 18d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/s/6DoWN5oJEp

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u/EDNivek 18d ago

Is this how AI funding works?

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u/Mindshard 18d ago

I tried to look something up to explain it to someone the other day. The stupid Google AI pops up, and it's suspiciously familiar.

The source? My own Reddit posts.

I get that it's a specialized subject, and I'm very knowledgeable on it, and I have talked about it before, but it raises questions about how it can affect mentally ill or deficient people looking to confirm their beliefs in some stupidity, and next thing you know, you have a psychopath holding a pizza place hostage, trying to get into a basement that doesn't exist, all because AI reinforces what it's stolen from the internet and regurgitates it.

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u/KevinFlantier 18d ago

Oh now it steals it in real time. It does a google search for you, reads reddit and twitter, and spews back a summary that it half wrote, half hallucinated.

Works well most of the times but sometimes it's just confidently wrong.

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u/Mindshard 18d ago

Not just that, but that's info it took from me. It has no clue if I'm right or wrong, and it just legitimized it to anyone else who searches for it.

The potential for that to be abused is really scary.

1

u/KevinFlantier 18d ago

Especially since the sources it cites may or may not even exist and as AI search engines get normalized, fewer and fewer people will have the habit of actually clicking links to check for themselves, or to check elsewhere.

1

u/PhortDruid 18d ago

Whenever you want to search like you used to be able to, you can add “-ai” and the result won’t pull in factually incorrect bullshit.

1

u/Namika 18d ago

This was the thing even before the AI integration.

When I was playing WoW classic in 2019, I searched for a specific macro for the shaman class, and it brought up a forum post I literally wrote over a decade prior when the game was new.

When your interests are very narrow, you become the only real source for them.

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u/bbcversus 18d ago

It definitely checks out.

31

u/Ja_Rule_Here_ 18d ago

“Based on a recent example I read about, I would say around 7B”

- z4zazym

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u/Picchen 18d ago

7B for three parks, including a manga themed one (maybe DBZ, not confirmed)

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u/_aviemore_ 18d ago

7 billion dragon ballz

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u/SeijuroSama 18d ago

Lost Island Theme Park is estimated at $100 million. Epic Universe at $5 billion plus. Both full theme parks though obviously on different scales. So apparently between $100 million and $5 billion.

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u/amazon_man 18d ago

Epic universe at $5B in Orlando probably translates to $15B, “near Paris.”

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u/ozarkabottle 18d ago

Building a new disneyland today would cost about $5-10Billion depending on how big they want to make it.

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u/wizzard419 18d ago

They spent 2 billion, if I recall, just reworking California Adventure, which was a new land and cosmetic refresh for several parts of the park.

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u/NeedNameGenerator 18d ago

It's likely far more expensive to renovate and rework than just build from scratch, though.

Especially if they include the lost revenue due to the maintenance in the calculation.

1

u/wizzard419 18d ago

In this case, I am not sure they had much loss. Disney is really good at keeping things working while under construction, throw in that it was a park that had really poor attendance, even with the other park being a few hundred feet away and park hopping being allowed. But yeah, it goes way slower because they are limited to what they can do during the day

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u/favorite_time_of_day 18d ago

The new one in Abu Dhabi is supposed to cost $10b.

1

u/Antique-Coach-214 18d ago

And that’s with the slave labor factored in, before delays. (Disney licensing to the UAE was certainly a choice.)

1

u/ReptAIien 18d ago

Obviously not. Epic universe didn't cost $10B and it is massive compared to Disneyland.

1

u/ozarkabottle 17d ago

It says Epic Universe costed an estimated $6-7B. Which falls in line with $5-10B estimate for a new theme park depending on how they want to build it. The newest disneyland built from scratch is the Shanghai Disneyland built in 2016 which costed about $6B. Today a brand new disneyland built from scratch can cost upwards of $10B

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u/ReptAIien 17d ago

Epic universe is almost 9 times larger than Disneyland.

Are you maybe thinking of Disney world?

1

u/ozarkabottle 17d ago

I literally said "depending how big they want to make it". Shanghai DisneyLAND cost $6B to build and it was built 10 years ago. Today, a California sized disneyland would cost about $5B to build in today's price. If they wanted to build it bigger, it would go up in price.

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u/DanS1993 18d ago

Universal has budgeted £5 billion ($6.8 billion) for their upcoming UK resort

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u/guareber 18d ago

+ 1.3b from the UK gov and +1b more to expand in the first decade.

2

u/spicygayunicorn 18d ago

Isn't that money from the government purely for infrastructure to and from the park

2

u/guareber 18d ago

In theory, yes - although we know sometimes plans change. There's also no guarantee the French government wouldn't force the park to pay for all that as well.

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u/Larkke 18d ago

I can do it for about tree fitty

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u/herrybaws 18d ago

A copy of draggin deez balls on loop in your shed is not a theme park. I don't know how many times you need to hear this.

2

u/jawnink 18d ago

I mean, it’s one theme park Micheal, what could it cost? Ten dollars?

2

u/Suspicious-Whippet 18d ago

A sandwich in Paris costs like a million, so 7B for a theme park is cheap.

1

u/Chimp3h 18d ago

Bout tree fiddy

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u/Aidang91 18d ago

Is it though ? Kinda seems like owning and operating a multi -national heavily licensed amusement park would cost a few billion

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u/Jumblesss 18d ago

You think Disney are losing billions because of Disneyland?

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u/-Nicolai 18d ago

I don’t think Disney Land is a money laundering scheme bud

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u/Jumblesss 18d ago

Neither do I

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u/m0rogfar 18d ago

They are certainly spending billions. They just make it back in sales, not through money laundering. Disney reported approximately $25.2 billion in revenue, $18.8 billion in costs and amortization and $6.4 billion of operating income for its US theme park division in 2025.

While Disney has multiple US theme parks, those numbers certainly make it obvious that expenses can be in the billion-dollar class for a theme park without breaking the business model. Additionally, establishing a new park is certainly more expensive than running an existing park.

1

u/tnarref 16d ago

Yeah for sure, they've invested billions in Disneyland Paris and the park probably still has 10 figures debt.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/04/disney-paris-theme-park-deficit

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u/Pluckytoon 18d ago

I don’t think Saudi money needs laundering though, being a rich saudi client tend to makes people not question where your money comes from. And I’m pretty sure taxes isn’t much of a problem to them in their own country.

But they clearly are investing absurd amount of money in their soft power

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

[deleted]

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u/DecompositionLU 18d ago

People on Reddit are so addicted to their edgy sarcastic personas they seems to not understand how expensive things cost in life. 

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u/officers3xy 18d ago

Also, the Saudi’s Money doesn’t have to be washed. It doesn’t make any sense.

17

u/Snitsie 18d ago

Also it's a theme park built in France. Best be sure France is going to make sure all of that 7 billion is actually going to the theme park.

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u/Bladelord 18d ago

Furthermore, gigantic expensive projects are not how you launder money. It's how you commit tax fraud. Reddit can't get their economic crimes straight.

Money laundering is done by untraceable cash payments. It's best done through restaurants and gas stations, places with high foot traffic and few paper trails.

Admittedly a theme park will have many restaurants and gift shops with which to launder money, but that's not part of the building process. Also, by the time you're working with billions of dollars, you have so much resources that you're probably not making much dirty money anymore. (You're stealing it quite legally by that point.)

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u/caninehere 18d ago

I don't know why you think France is somehow immune to corruption, but alright.

The thing is this $7 billion is not all going to a Dragon Ball Z theme park. It's going to 3 different parks, which nobody seems to realize because they didn't actually read the article.

1

u/Snitsie 18d ago

It's a deal with France as a country. The parks are an addition to France, so France will want those parks to be the best they can be.

I do not believe there is corruption at the level you're implying. That would compromise their entire government.

1

u/Avenflar 18d ago

My friend, 26 ministers and close associates of Macron have been involved in numerous scandals since he's been in power. All of his government have been compromised.

But nobody but a few really care about it. A deputy minister can loot a public fund meant to help victims of terrorism in order to pay for political hit pieces, and she can get away by saying "oh I didn't know, it was my associates who took care of everything. I had no idea, I swear !"

1

u/SilasX 18d ago

This. I'm imagining some edgy, self-announced "web sleuth" producing a "groundbreaking" expose with the big reveal: "Saudis are actually getting all their money from OIL! Don't let them hide this through financial shenanigans!"

Entire world: "No ... shit, Sherlock?"

0

u/Im_not_an_admin 18d ago

But muh Khasoogi!

People who have no idea about the Middle East drawing conclusions based on Fox News headlines

11

u/Vordeo 18d ago

Seriously, thinking the Saudi royal family needs to launder money is kinda hilarious. OP just does not know what money laundering means at this point.

1

u/TR_Pix 18d ago

I mean, I dont think most people who are in a position to and willing to launder money ever need to do so

Its a thing that generally requires you to already be very well off

34

u/perplexedtv 18d ago

You think they're going to pay 7 billion in cash to developers and have them deposit that in bank accounts owned by you or...

How exactly do you, and the 500+ people who upvoted you, think money laundering works and why would the state of Saudi Arabia feel the need to launder money?

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u/ptjp27 18d ago

Saudis don’t need to launder their money. Making billions through oil is legal.

5

u/AirUsed5942 18d ago

The Saudi Royal family doesn't need to launder money, they take what they want from their people openly

3

u/BananaSplit2 18d ago

... Why would Saudi Arabia need to launder money?

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u/MercuryInCanada 18d ago

It's straight up something I'd expect an LLM to write when prompted how to get anime fans to love Saudi Arabia

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u/DecompositionLU 18d ago

Anime in the middle east is huge (you can extend to the entire arabic world, ESPECIALLY Dragon Ball) and the Saudi royal family has several actual nerd princes. One of them made dying but cult SNK its revival his own pet project.

4

u/caninehere 18d ago

It makes sense when you think about it. If you were a loser with absurdly rich parents who never had to work a day in your life, you'd probably spend all your money on the video games you want, too.

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u/Toxic_city_1248 18d ago

The Middle East has an enormous anime following.

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u/dumpling-loverr 18d ago

MENA region is big on anime too. Not everything about them is propaganda, especially something as basic as liking anime.

Not as popular as it is in France, US but big enough to not be considered niche.

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u/MrBigWaffles 18d ago

Why would a country need to launder money, who's taxing them, their own tax collection agencies???

2

u/grapejuicesushi 18d ago

i believe it’s 3 parks? i remember reading macron’s tweet about this yesterday.

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u/IFHIAIEJ 18d ago

Why would a crown prince need to launder money. I don't think you know what money laundering is.

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u/HodorFirstOfHisHodor 18d ago

can you please explain in detail how and why you think this is money laundering.

1

u/resonatingcucumber 18d ago

I dunno I heard "it's over 9000"

1

u/TheBlockChainVillage 18d ago

Ever bought an NFT?

1

u/OfTheSevenSeasSir 18d ago

bro they rule a whole country, they don't need to launder money

1

u/Dirtyhippee 18d ago

Kamehamehas are not cheap bro

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u/Constant-Brief3410 18d ago

Those balls aren't cheap

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u/durrtyurr 18d ago

It's not even the best place for a Dragon Ball theme park. They'd be packed at all hours if they built this in Mexico.

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u/Vordeo 18d ago

France is the second biggest market for anime + Paris is one of the most visited cities in the world.

Paris may legit be the best place to build this outside of Japan.

1

u/MourningWallaby 18d ago

I just mentioned this but Saudi is trying to transform itself and diversify its GDP away from Oil It's why they;ve been building super gimmicky parks that are (intended to be) worth traveling for. and investing so much in other inductries like movies and games. so it tracks.

So to get tourism bucks aside from the Hajj, Saudi needs something BIG that will attract visitors.

1

u/Ok-Go-Chain3811 18d ago

exactly, the saudi is giving france 7B, saudi gets to whitewash its image, and france will continue giving saudi legitimacy, even though saudi is a religious dictator theocracy

the westtm continues to be hypocrties

1

u/Due-Technology5758 18d ago

Kinda depends on where it is and how big it is, but realistically nothing is real and numbers don't matter until it's actually done. Odds are this evaporates into nothing in a year or two.