Wang Jianlin

This week, Wang Jianlin, the billionaire chairman of China’ s Wanda Group, gave a speech in Los Angeles describing the growth potential of the Chinese film market to filmmaking heavyweights. One of the most important purposes of his visit was to find potential clients for a film facility being built in Qingdao with investment capital from Wanda Group.

In his speech, Wang predicted that China's movie box office will reach $10 billion in 2018, overtaking the U.S. to become the world's largest film market. He also predicted that in next decade, the Chinese box office will maintain an annual growth rate of 15 percent.

Nine U.S. companies sign deal with the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis.

In order to lure world-renowned film production companies to the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis, which is still under construction, Wang and the Qingdao government are offering a series of incentives. The most attractive offer is for a subsidy worth up to 40 percent of a film’s production cost.

According to Wanda, nine film production companies including Lionsgate have signed agreements with Qingdao to produce 11 Hollywood films in the facility so far.

Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis is a major move by Wanda Group to push further into the film industry. Wanda recently purchased American cinema chain AMC, and was even close to finalizing the acquisition of Legendary Entertainment. The company is currently trying to buy more film and television production companies.

The Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis

With total investment of 50 billion RMB, Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis will be the world's largest and most complete film production facility, according to Wanda Group. The project covers an area of 165.8 hectares and boasts 30 sound stages. The whole facility will be officially opened in August 2018.

In early July, Wanda Group, the Qingdao municipal government and the Huangdao district government jointly invested 5 billion RMB to subsidize the production of films in the new facility. The annual expenditure is expected to be 1 billion RMB.

Wang said in his speech that the West’s negative views of Chinese films sometimes demonstrate misunderstanding.

The Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis

"Many American film companies think they understand China very well. In fact, I have found that Hollywood really lacks professionals who understand the Chinese market. Many people just sit in Los Angeles imagining the Chinese market," Wang stressed.

Wang also said that Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis will not take jobs away from Hollywood; instead, it will bring more opportunities.

"We have built a lot of hardware, but we lack management and technical personnel. This is why we are currently recruiting management and other personnel globally, especially in Hollywood. We have a huge demand for people with these capabilities. So the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis will significantly increase the number of jobs in Hollywood," Wang said.