China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, has been on a buying spree in Hollywood.
His media conglomerate, Dalian Wanda Group, has aggressively expanded into the U.S. film industry. The company, which already owns the nation’s second-largest theater chain and a major U.S. film producer, recently signed a deal to invest in Sony Pictures movies. Now, Wanda is in talks to buy the iconic Dick Clark Productions, producer of the Golden Globe Awards, in a deal that values the company at about $1 billion.
And Wang, 61, may just be warming up. The brash executive has proclaimed his desire to acquire one of the six major Hollywood studios and vowed to “change the world where rules are set by foreigners.” Wanda recently was in talks to buy a 49% stake in Paramount Pictures until parent company Viacom Inc. scuttled the sale.
But not everyone is happy about Wang’s ambitious plans, which have sparked heightened concerns among some lawmakers that a company closely aligned with the Chinese government could wield too much control over the content and distribution of American movies.
If he succeeds, Wang potentially could tilt the balance of power in the global entertainment industry at a time when China could soon eclipse America as the world’s largest movie market.
“Wanda’s influence cannot yet be measured except to say that every possible ramification is on the table,” said Peter Shiao, chief executive of Orb Media, a film production and marketing company with offices in Los Angeles and Beijing. “It used to be Hollywood expanding outwards, but in this case, that position is now being occupied by a Chinese company.”
China’s economic miracle during the past four decades has been defined by its manufacturing prowess. But to become a true global power worthy of cultural influence, it needs entertainment companies like Beijing-based Wanda to succeed. Making box office smashes isn’t like making cellphones and TVs, though. Few outside of Hollywood, Bollywood and South Korea have ever struck a winning formula.
Wanda’s solution has been to go on a buying binge to catch up.
“What we’ve seen with Wanda is they want to own studios like Legendary, but they don’t want to run them,” said Clayton Dube, director of the USC U.S.-China Institute. “Wanda is saying, ‘We don’t know how to make good movies yet. We want to learn.’ ”
But Wanda’s quest for so-called soft power is unnerving its critics in the U.S. This month, 16 U.S. congressmen signed a letter to encourage greater scrutiny of Chinese investment in American industry, citing Wanda’s investments in AMC and Legendary Entertainment, which the company acquired earlier this year for $3.5 billion, a price that some analysts said was excessive. Legendary helped produce such hits as “Jurassic World” and “Godzilla.”
The lawmakers expressed concern about the potential for Chinese influence to censor American movies or otherwise alter content to further Chinese interests.
Wanda is not the first Chinese company to face scrutiny from the U.S. government. Chinese telecommunications hardware firm Huawei, for example, has been blocked from U.S expansion plans because of security concerns.
Meanwhile, Richard Berman, a controversial media strategist and provocateur, has launched a campaign called China Owns Us that questions whether it’s prudent to let companies like Wanda buy up U.S. media companies.
“Chinese control of movie production, radio station broadcasts, and other public channels provides the Chinese government with a platform to promote its own ideological message in the place of competing ideologies — often in an unassuming manner,” the group says in a white paper.
As if to reach the heart of the entertainment industry, the campaign paid for a billboard on the Sunset Strip that read: “China’s Red Puppet: AMC Theaters.”
“They’re creating a stir and building a backlash,” Stanley Rosen, a USC political science professor and China expert, said of Wanda’s critics.
Wanda Group didn’t respond to requests for comment.
But Wang has been clear about his goals, once saying, “There’s nothing wrong with being No. 1 worldwide.”