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our ecosystem to bring more efficiency and transparency to the filmmaking process.”
Zhang describes her goal as growing Alibaba’s role as a gateway between Hollywood
and China by developing appropriate content for Chinese movie audiences. And those
audiences are expected to grow into the world’s largest, in light of China’s 1.4 billion
population. Alibaba Pictures’ parent company has been reshaping the Chinese entertainment
industry with an aggressive acquisition
strategy since 2014.
Formed in 1999, Alibaba is the brainchild of one of China’s most beloved businessmen
— Jack Ma. He’s been called the
Steve Jobs of China because of his
business savvy, his inspirational lead-
ership and his intimate understanding nding
of the American and Hollywood cultures.
An e-commerce company at its
core, Alibaba leverages entertainment nment
ventures (film production investments,
movie and live events ticketing apps,
video-streaming platforms, mobile
content browsers and others) to promote interests in a multifaceted ted
cross-
business ecosystem.
For example, Alibaba invested ed in
Amblin Partner’s 2017 film A Dog’s
Purpose (starring Dennis Quaid and
Josh Gad) and helmed marketing the
flick in China. Overall, the movie
raked in only $64 million in the U.S., but
it made $88 million in China with the help
of Alibaba’s online movie ticketing app, Tao Piao Piao — in China more than 80
percent of movie tickets are bought online using apps.
From its Pasadena offices, Alibaba continues the Amblin partnership with the sequel,
A Dog’s Journey, slated for a May 2019 release. Alibaba’s other successful movie
investments include big-budget action flicks such as Dunkirk, Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Star Trek Beyond and Mission Impossible — Fallout.
Earlier this year, Alibaba Pictures announced it was partnering with STX Entertainment
on the Robert Zemeckis–produced Steel Soldiers, an original sci-fi action
movie set in a futuristic world where humans and androids battle side-by-side. Also
this year, Alibaba threw its hat into the ring with other studios (21st Century Fox,
CHINESE MOVIE
AUDIENCES... ARE EXPECTED
TO GROW INTO THE
WORLD’S LARGEST, IN LIGHT
OF CHINA’S 1.4 BILLION
POPULATION.
Disney, NBCUniversal, etc.) to fund Jeffrey Katzenberg’s streaming video startup,
NewTV, which is creating short content for small screens.
For the younger set, Alibaba is producing a full-length adaption of the hit children’s
TV series Peppa Pig, based on a beloved series of animated characters that
premiered in the U.K. in 2004. (The movie will be a combination of animation and
live
action.) It’s scheduled to be released ed during Chinese New Year 2019, which will
usher in the Year of (what else?) the Pig.
So
what can we make of this
Chinese entertainment company
that invests in American big-action
films, heartwarming family flicks and
charming children’s fare?
“I predict that Alibaba will be a
good neighbor and a good company
in the Southland, but I don’t think
it will be a game-changer for the
Southland,” says Tom Nunan, an international
cinema expert, lecturer at
UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and
Television and partner in Bulls’ Eye
Entertainment, a mid-size indepen-
dent film and television production
company.
Nunan remembers the ChinaHol-
lywood lovefest of a few years ago
that seized the imagination of producers, financiers nciers and
investors, eager to partner up
with a new foreign market, foreign talent and foreign money. The hope was that such
a move would herald development of a China-L.A. synergy, especially since Northern
California — with its emerging technology in software and AI — has had a longstanding
relationship with Beijing.
In 2015, leading Chinese investment and entertainment companies, such as Fosun
International, LeTV, Dalian Wanda and, of course, Alibaba, were all going Hollywood;
Wanda had just bought the AMC Theatre chain, and the STX production
company was doing a deal with China’s Huayi Brothers Media Group. “All of us in
entertainment had stars in our eyes, thinking, Wow! China’s investment in us will
pump up the volume in Hollywood financially, content-wise, across the board,” Nunan
continues. “We have all sobered up since then.”
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