According to
Reuters China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, is stepping up his push to take over one of the major Hollywood studios.
Wang is chairman of Dalian Wanda Group Co, a real estate and entertainment conglomerate. He says he has two billion-dollar deals in the pipeline and an eye beyond that to taking over one of the industry’s six major studios - Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney, Universal Pictures and Columbia.
Wanda was said to be nearing a
$4B purchase of 49% of Paramount Pictures. The Chinese company bought control of production company Legendary Entertainment for $3.5B this year and wants to triple revenue from its cultural division to 150B yuan ($22.6B) by 2020.
The conglomerate also controls theater firm AMC Entertainment, and with the completion of acquisitions of Odeon & UCI Cinemas Group and Carmike Cinemas, would control 15% of global box office revenues.
"We are interested not only in Paramount, but all of them. If one of the Big Six would be willing to be sold to us, we would be interested," Wang said. "Only the six are real global film companies, while the rest are not. If we are to build a real movie empire, this is a necessary step."