KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 23 — Les’ Copaque Production Sdn Bhd is planning to build a real life ‘Kampung Durian Runtuh’.

Kampung Durian Runtuh is the fictional village where mischievous twins, Upin and Ipin from the company’s Upin & Ipin animated series reside.

Les’ Copaque’s head honcho, Burhanuddin Md Radzi posted on his Facebook, that they have found a suitable site for their Upin Ipin theme park in Johor Baru.

He said that the theme park, unlike others, will not have ‘expensive roller coasters or rides’. Instead, it will be an interactive ‘Kampung Durian Runtuh’ for fans to experience and he assured that tickets would be affordable to all.

"Hopefully this time it will materialise, Insyallah. We will start the planning immediately and hopefully it will be operational in Jan 2023.

"It will be a new attraction in JB for all our fans in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei.”

Burhanuddin explained that building a theme park requires high capital outlay and location plays an important role as well.

In another Facebook post, he said they had declined an offer made by the then Perak’s MB in 2012, to build an Upin & Ipin theme park on 42 acres land in Ipoh, where the current Movie Animation Studio of Perak (MAPS) is located.

"Since we have a small population, you need to attract foreign visitors to patronise your theme park. Ipoh is not an ideal site for foreign visitors.

"From KLIA you need to travel about three hours and from Penang about two hours. It is so inconvenient for tourists.

"Since Johor has all the facilities for them (foreign visitors) to come, that is why we go to JB.” 

He added that having a local intellectual property (IP) theme park would be beneficial compared to established ones from overseas as they’re often too expensive and are slowly dying referring to foreign theme parks such as the Angry Bird Activity Park and the Sanrio Hello Kitty Town in Johor.

"The other setback of having foreign IP, you can’t simply change the contents as you need to have the approval of the IP owners.

"There is a need to change the contents to suit the local visitors.”

Les’ Copaque was established in December 2005 by Burhanuddin and Ainon Ariff along with three Multimedia University graduates.

The Shah Alam-based studio’s French-sounding name was derived from the Malay phrase ‘last kopek’ which translates to last chance.

Last year, they hit a milestone after being the first Malaysian YouTube Channel to receive the Diamond Play Button Award for hitting the 10 million subscribers mark.