China's Wanda buys Hollywood film company Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion

[webfact]

China's Wanda buys Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group announced Tuesday it has agreed to buy Hollywood film company Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion in what it said is China's biggest foreign cultural acquisition to date.

Wanda, whose chairman, Wang Jianlin, is one of Chinese richest businesspeople, has expanded rapidly into the film industry. It owns the U.S. cinema chain AMC and is developing an $8 billion studio complex in eastern China.

Chinese companies, many of them inexperienced but cash-rich, are on a buying spree abroad for assets that can speed their development and help them expand in global markets.

With its latest acquisition, Wanda's film businesses will include a full range of production, distribution and exhibition, Wang said in a statement. The company also has interests in hotels, retailing and real estate.

Legendary's productions have included the "Batman" trilogy, "Inception" and "The Hangover." The company says its movies have grossed more than $12 billion worldwide.

"Wanda will help Legendary increase its market opportunities, especially in the fast-growing China market," said Wang.


-- (c) Associated Press 2016-01-12

[FangFerang]

Only a very few high quality Chinese films have ever been viewed on American silver screens, and there were more than a dozen just in the last two years. After unsuccessfully launching reels of quality films, only to find the Hollyweird door and gateway to American distribution locked, bolted and under guard, the Chinese finally figured out how to penetrate the entertainment market...

Buy into it.

Good. Half of what Hollyweird has been launching are either tired retakes, sorry prequels and sorrier sequels, people are sick of wasting time and money for mediocre products at premium prices. Star Wars the Force Awakens is a notable exception to this, but Mad Max, the Spider Man remakes and retakes and refakes (and a LONG list of others) were a complete waste of time and money for consumers.

Let the Chinese have a go--it will shake up the complacency in LA--and LA needs shaken up rather harshly, IMHO, and I do not mean an earthquake.

Edited January 12, 2016 by FangFerang

[elgordo38]

Sounds similar to what the Japanese did before their economy collapsed.

[JetsetBkk]

Only a very few high quality Chinese films have ever been viewed on American silver screens, and there were more than a dozen just in the last two years. After unsuccessfully launching reels of quality films, only to find the Hollyweird door and gateway to American distribution locked, bolted and under guard, the Chinese finally figured out how to penetrate the entertainment market...

Buy into it.

Good. Half of what Hollyweird has been launching are either tired retakes, sorry prequels and sorrier sequels, people are sick of wasting time and money for mediocre products at premium prices. Star Wars the Force Awakens is a notable exception to this, but Mad Max, the Spider Man remakes and retakes and refakes (and a LONG list of others) were a complete waste of time and money for consumers.

Let the Chinese have a go--it will shake up the complacency in LA--and LA needs shaken up rather harshly, IMHO, and I do not mean an earthquake.

"a complete waste of time and money for consumers."

Agreed, and almost the same for us torrents guys, too.

[Chicog]

Legendary's productions have included the "Batman" trilogy, "Inception" and "The Hangover."

"Cultural acquisition"?

[Publicus]

Only a very few high quality Chinese films have ever been viewed on American silver screens, and there were more than a dozen just in the last two years. After unsuccessfully launching reels of quality films, only to find the Hollyweird door and gateway to American distribution locked, bolted and under guard, the Chinese finally figured out how to penetrate the entertainment market...

Buy into it.

Good. Half of what Hollyweird has been launching are either tired retakes, sorry prequels and sorrier sequels, people are sick of wasting time and money for mediocre products at premium prices. Star Wars the Force Awakens is a notable exception to this, but Mad Max, the Spider Man remakes and retakes and refakes (and a LONG list of others) were a complete waste of time and money for consumers.

Let the Chinese have a go--it will shake up the complacency in LA--and LA needs shaken up rather harshly, IMHO, and I do not mean an earthquake.

Anyone who thinks the Chinese Communist Party of the People's Republic of China has a free and open privately owned and operated industry of arts and entertainment is out of his tree.

Anyone who believes the CCP and its wholly owned PRC accept freedom of artistic or any kind of expression needs fitting for a straight jacket.

A movie now and then slips through but it hardly strays from the Party line.

Lost in Thailand is the Chinese cinema's box office overall number one in tickets sold, whether foreign or domestic film, to include Avatar, Titanic and the rest of 'em.

CCP felt so good about it they gave the Wanda group the green light to distribute it in the USA via their AMC theatres. This was in 2013 and in the US Lost in Thailand grossed exactly $57,000 (fifty-seven thousdand). While some of the film was shot in Chiang Mai, as far as I know it never played in Thailand.

Several years ago the CCP marched all its middle school pupils throughout the CCP China to the cinemas to watch a Party made movie about Chairman Mao.

CCP censors allow 34 foreign films a year into the PRC, 21 of which are from the USA. Until recently it had been a third of each permitted number. CCP needs to learn from a lot more than that.