China has flirted with Hollywood for many years now, keen to turn Tinseltown's glittering appeal into box office gold as the Chinese film industry expands at a rate of knots. But last week saw one of the most concrete signs of affection when the property giant Dalian Wanda bought the US film studio Legendary Entertainment, famous for blockbusters like Jurassic World, The Dark Knight and Godzilla.
So now Wanda is the first Chinese firm to own a major Hollywood studio.
Wanda is a busy company, buying into soccer clubs like Atletico Madrid – chairman Wang Jianlin is definitely more of a footie fan than a movie buff – as well as financial services companies.
There are about 15 cinema screens being constructed every day in China and it is expected to become the world’s biggest film market within the next two years.
Wanda bought Legendary for about €3.23 billion, allowing Wang, by some reckonings China’s richest man, to realise his ambition to become a movie mogul.
"Wanda Cinema already has made tremendous development in China, but it isn't enough," said Wang, whose personal wealth is probably about €25 billion. "Movies are global, and our company certainly wants to add our voice to the world film market."
When Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened in Beijing two weeks ago, it took €49 million, which is less than other Hollywood blockbusters. But for an unknown franchise, it's impressive. The market is growing by more than a third every year.
Wang has made no secret of his desire for a presence in Hollywood. He spent €1.2 billion on a plot of land at 9900 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, for the HQ of Wanda's US entertainment business. And in September 2013, he brought Hollywood A-listers – including actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman and producer Harvey Weinstein – over to launch the company's vast movie facility in the eastern Chinese port city of Qingdao, which is slated to open in 2017.
It will be the biggest studio complex in the world, with 30 sound stages and a permanent copy of a New York street – as well as China’s largest outdoor water tank.
Hollywood’s ambitions are reined in by the quota system, which restricts foreign films being shown in Chinese cinemas to 34 a year. They have to pass the Chinese censors, so the ones that arrive are politics-free blockbusters.
What the purchase of Legendary means is that the movies made become Chinese movies, sidestepping the quota system and lining up the possibility of the true nirvana for Hollywood and Chinese film producers – a film that works in both China and the United States.
Wanda is also buying expertise. As part of the transaction, Legendary's founder and chief executive Thomas Tull will continue to head up the movie maker.
The purchase of Legendary is a major move for Wang's ambitions. Wanda is already the world's biggest movie theatre operator, having bought AMC Entertainment, North America's second-largest cinema chain, for €2.4 billion in 2012.He already owns the country's biggest chains of cinemas as well as cinemas in the US.
Wang is looking at the bigger picture with the purchase. Legendary’s intellectual property should add value to its motion picture and television production business, leading to fresh opportunities for joint production, he said, while bolstering its tourism and cultural businesses at the same time.
