Legendary Entertainment acquired by China's Wanda Group for $3.5b

[DAJK]

Woah. I'm super curious as to where this leads. Will be interesting to watch over the next 4-5 years.

[A Marvel Fanboy]

Wanda is shaping to be one of the biggest film industry players in the world. Good news this is. PR2 should be back on track soon.

[Cookson]

Do you guys think this effects their already planned Godzilla/Kong Cinematic Universe in a negative way? I would think it can only make those releases stronger... especially since Tull is still CEO. Just more clarification on already planned releases would be nice... but I would think they should all be a go still.

[Jonwo]

I can't help but think Wanda has overpaid for Legendary, Marvel and LucasFilm were bought for only half a billion more by Disney and they have valuable IP. Legendary doesn't even have that.

[Jayhawk the Hutt]

Quick question. I thought that production companies can't own movie theaters in the US (or at least, a significant share of theaters) due to anti-trust laws? How can Wanda own AMC and Legendary at the same time? Is it because Legendary is not a distributor?

2 hours ago, Jonwo said:

I can't help but think Wanda has overpaid for Legendary, Marvel and LucasFilm were bought for only half a billion more by Disney and they have valuable IP. Legendary doesn't even have that.

If they can get more than 25% of teh gross and/or have a longer release window for their films, this could be worth the money. Plus, it gets the Chinese film market a foothold in Hollywood, which they desperately wanted. I think both the Marvel and Lucasfilm acquisitions are seen as steals. Both easily could've (should've?) at least double.