China’s Wanda Group announced on Tuesday it will buy Hollywood film studio Legendary Entertainment. The studio produced the Dark Knight Batman trilogy, ‘Inception’ and ‘Interstellar’, and has grossed more than $12 billion worldwide at the box office.
The chairman of Wanda, Wang Jianlin, has been actively trying to find a way into the movie business. One of China’s richest people, he bought US satellite and cable TV channel AMC in 2012 and is developing an $8 billion studio complex in eastern China.
“Wanda will help Legendary increase its market opportunities, especially in the fast-growing China market,” said Wang.
The Chinese group said Legendary’s Thomas Tull would continue to work as a chairman and chief executive and will still supervise day-to-day work.
“Wanda and Legendary will create a completely new international entertainment company,” said Tull in a statement.
This is the fourth largest Chinese acquisition of a US business. The $3.5 billion deal comes after WH Group’s $7 billion purchase of pork packer Smithfield Foods in 2013, the Chinese sovereign wealth fund’s 2007 purchase of a 9.9 percent stake in Morgan Stanley for $5.6 billion and Unisplendour’s $3.7 billion bid for 15 percent of Western Digital in 2016.
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China’s 1.3 trillion moviegoer market is recognized as the biggest growing in the world. Ticket sales in the country were up almost 50 percent last year to $6.8 billion, according to Japanese investment bank Nomura. It said last week that total revenue will rise another 25 percent in 2016.