Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners and Alibaba Pictures Group Ltd (阿里巴巴影業集團), the film studio unit of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), yesterday said they will co-
produce and finance films for global and Chinese audiences.
They will also collaborate on the marketing, distribution and merchandising of Amblin Partner films in China, the companies said in a joint statement.
Under the terms of their partnership, Alibaba Pictures would also acquire a minority stake in Amblin Partners, which is chaired by Spielberg, the award-winning US movie director and producer.
No financial details were announced.
The partnership “marks an important milestone in our globalization strategy to reach Chinese and global audiences alike,” Alibaba Pictures chairman Shao Xiaofeng (邵曉鋒) said in a statement. “We will also leverage Alibaba Group’s ecosystem as a channel for Amblin Partners’ films to reach hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers.”
Amblin Partners creates film, television and digital content under the Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks Pictures and Participant Media brands.
Hong Kong-listed Alibaba Pictures has yet to release any films, although the company formerly known as ChinaVision Media Group Ltd (文化中國傳播集團) has several projects in production.
Alibaba Pictures began investing in Hollywood films last year with its stake in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation. It was an investor in this year’s blockbusters Star Trek Beyond and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.
Billionaire Jack Ma’s (馬雲) Alibaba Group paid about US$800 million for a controlling stake in ChinaVision Media in 2014. The company later became known as Alibaba Pictures.
The investment was part of a wave of acquisitions by big Chinese companies looking to expand their Hollywood footprint while bringing more Western films to China, set to soon surpass the US as the world’s biggest movie market.
Dalian Wanda Group Co (大連萬達集團), the conglomerate controlled by China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin (王健林), is partnering with Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group under which Wanda would market Sony Pictures’ films and co-finance some upcoming movie releases of Sony Corp’s film unit in China.
In January, Wanda paid US$3.5 billion for a controlling stake in US film studio Legendary Entertainment LLC.
The group has also since said it would start co-investing in global blockbusters next year.
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
RSS