In the latest major East-West movie production and financing development, China’s Huayi Brothers Media has reached an 18-picture, three-year deal with an unnamed U.S. company.
The deal was announced as a regulatory filing in China without naming the U.S. party to the deal.
Put together through its wholly-owned US subsidiary, Huayi will help fund, produce and distribute 18 feature films through 2017. The U.S. unit was established last September with start-up capital of $130 million.
According to the note, Huayi will also retain distribution rights in Greater China including HK/Macau, Taiwan and Singapore.
Huayi says that that it will draw three financial benefits from the partnership: distribution fees; a direct share of global revenues; and profits in proportion to its equity positions in the movies.
"This is not only a step for Huayi Brothers’ internationalization, but also the internationalization of all Chinese film companies,” the company said.
Huayi already has a international sales arrangement with IM Global, but the Stuart Ford-headed company is understood not to be the partner. Nor, according to sources close to Huayi, are any of the six major Hollywood or Legendary Entertainment, which has its own Chinese production unit Legendary East.
This week is expected to see the formalization of another major China-Hollywood tie-up, when Lionsgate signs a pact with Hunan TV to provide a quarter of Lionsgate’s film production costs over the next three years, valuing Hunan’s contribution at up to $375 million.
Huayi is China’s largest private sector film company and was previously involved in Jackie Chan and Jet-Li-starring China-U.S. co-venture “The Forbidden Kingdom” with Casey Silver Productions and Relativity Media. In what is now a previous era for Chinese film-making, Huayi was previously partner with Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia on Chinese titles including He Ping’s “Warriors of Heaven and Earth,” and Lu Chuan’s “Kekexili: Mountain Patrol.”