The Chinese company that bought the UK’s Aston Villa Football Club is nearing the purchase of a Hollywood film producer behind action films such as The Expendables and one of the Rambo sequels, according to people familiar with the matter.
Recon Group (睿康集團), headed by chairman Tony Xia (夏建統), is in talks to acquire the Millennium Films label, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
The purchase is likely to be made through Shenzhen-listed Recon Wenyuan Cable Co (睿康文遠電纜), though there is no certainty that a deal will be struck, they said.
Should a deal go through, Xia would join the growing number of Chinese moguls who are buying their way into Hollywood and Western sports teams. Big studios such as Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures have teamed up with Chinese companies for film funding and marketing partnerships.
A spokesman for Millennium Films declined to comment. Wenyuan Cable, which has a market value of about US$1.2 billion and whose shares have been halted from trading since Jan. 26 pending an acquisition in the film industry, did not respond to calls and an e-mail seeking comment.
Founded in 1996 by Avi Lerner and Trevor Short, Los Angeles-based Millennium Films produced the three Expendables movies, which have totaled more than US$800 million worldwide, according to researcher Box Office Mojo. The company produces, finances and handles international sales for five to eight star-driven movies a year, generally with budgets of between US$20 million and US$80 million, according to its Web site.
Other titles in its library include Rambo, Olympus Has Fallen and The Mechanic — the action series featuring Jason Statham, who is so popular in China that the last Mechanic movie collected more than twice the box office in China that it did in the US. He is set to star in MEG, a Chinese-US coproduction that is scheduled for release in March next year.
Xia, who holds a doctorate from Harvard University, gained control of Wenyuan Cable — a maker of wires and cables — in October last year and the company has since turned its focus toward entertainment. Last year, Xia’s Recon Group — a Beijing-based conglomerate that has businesses in industries ranging from healthcare to agriculture — bought the Aston Villa team from former Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner.
As China’s foray into Hollywood deepens — media mogul Wang Jianlin’s (王健林) Dalian Wanda Group Co (萬達集團) has spent billions of US dollars on US theaters and filmmaker Legendary Entertainment — some US lawmakers have called greater scrutiny over such deals.
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