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Dalian Wanda Group looking to acquire one of the big six Hollywood film studios

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I think Sony would be a good pursuit, they don't seem to be great at securing talent, that money could be much better spent in other divisions.
 

Elandyll

Banned
Disney is out of reach, and probably Universal too.

Fox is having some major titles (Ms Peregrine, Trolls, Assassin's Creed, Wolverine, Kingsman2, War of Planet of the Apes & Alien Covenant about to come out), with in particular a few Avatar movies which should make bank, and hopefully a good Battle Angel Alita.

Warner, in spite of having some problems, still has a ton of valuable property, but so does Sony Columbia (with a big Spider Man reboot on the way, but also Magnificent 7 and Passengers with Chris Pratt, but also Resident Evil 6, Inferno, The Dark Tower, Life, Uncharted and Jumanji all within a year).

Now Paramount... I guess the big notables are Jack Reacher, XxX sequel, Ghost in the Shell and World War Z2? That is, beside the one big franchise they have which makes them really super appealing to the Chinese audiences (you know, the one with giant transformable robots?).
Anyways, in the end, it's about which studio the parent company is willing to sell...
Sony might have been a candidate a few years back when they were hemorraging, but that's not the case anymore, and given the slate they "should" see a decent roi this year on Columbia.
Paramount/ Viacom seems to be blowing hot and cold about it...

Perhaps, very simply, nothing will happen? #shrug
 

Dabanton

Member
It will probably be Paramount.

Transformers and Mission Impossible already had heavy Chinese investment.

The problem with wishing for this is certain things are wanted for instance A lot of the touristy red phone box,big ben,cliche London stuff in Rouge Nation was apparently put in at the behest of the Chinese investors.

And I'm sure we all remember the bizarre narrative jump to China in the last Transformers movie. More of that kind of stuff? Haha
 

Piecake

Member
It will be interesting to see if this potential acquisition means Hollywood budgets for a few select Chinese movies now and whether or not Chinese made movies that need to go through the Chinese government censor can appeal to a worldwide audience to the degree that a Hollywood budget makes financial sense.
 
J

Jpop

Unconfirmed Member
This can only be a good thing for minority representation... Right?
 
I for one welcome the next Adam Sandler movie, in which his superhot asian wife half his age takes him and five of his childhood friends (played by Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock and Peter Fucking Dante) to the Ritz Carlton in Shanghai, only for wacky hijinks to follow as they drink, eat, dance, booze, yacht, and paraglide their way into hilarity! This Summer, it's full speed ahead in "How Do You Say 'Fuck You I'm Adam Sandler' in Mandarin?"
 
I for one welcome the next Adam Sandler movie, in which his superhot asian wife half his age takes him and five of his childhood friends (played by Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock and Peter Fucking Dante) to the Ritz Carlton in Shanghai, only for wacky hijinks to follow as they drink, eat, dance, booze, yacht, and paraglide their way into hilarity! This Summer, it's full speed ahead in "How Do You Say 'Fuck You I'm Adam Sandler' in Mandarin?"

Rated PG-13
 

Busty

Banned
This is nothing but talk, they won't get the opportunity to buy any of the big legacy studios and the US would never allow a Chinese company to buy a titan like Comcast or a Time Warner anyway.

And while a foreign company selling to another foreign company would probably work (Sony to Wanda) even that feels a stretch. Even a poorly situated Sony Pictures would still command $4-5 billion.

Wanda, like most Chinese players, talk a good game but these big deals will never be offered to them. If and when Paramount goes on the block expect either Warner Bros or Fox (etc, etc) to make a bid for it. I suspect that the Chinese will be frozen out entirely.

Truth of the matter is Wanda's big acquisition Legendary had been loosing money hand over fist and who else but a Chinese outfit would have paid big money for it?

If all these big Chinese companies want in on the studio system it'll will probably be in the form of Co financing production deals. Not by owning the studio itself.

Hell, it might be easier and cheaper for Wanda to just start their own studio ala STX.
 
This is why monopoly talk of corporations don't bother me anymore.
Either the two big companies merge or a major Chinese company nobody pays much attention to slips in and buys one of them anyway.
 

Heshinsi

"playing" dumb? unpossible
Sony Pictures for the most part is profitable. They do have some down years, but it's not like Sony is in the same position they were a few years back. I think Sony is done with any major sell offs for the foreseeable future. Also, the crap films that have come out the past year and so are things that were in production under the old management.
 
Yeah was just saying in the box office thread that we should be concerned about the future of Paramount. They have nothing coming out. No tentpoles in the foreseeable future, with Tom Cruise renegotiating salary for MI6.

They've got Transformers, Turtles, everything Nickelodeon and stuff.

Also, being owned by VIACOM grants you a lot of benefits when it comes to licenses.
 
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