China’s leading movie studio, Huayi Brothers Media has struck a film production pact with Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi.
The joint venture, called New Saint, was announced at a press conference in Beijing on Monday.
The venture will focus on scriptwriting and talent development. It has already signed up leading cinematographer-director and producer Gu Changwei (“Peacock”) and Guan Hu, the writer and director of Huayi’s current box office hit “Mr Six.”
"We want to promote screenwriting, and the significance of screenwriters to film projects,” said co-founder Tian Yusheng. Among the initial 20 projects there are web series, web movies, TV series and feature films.
Huayi co-chief James Wang Zhonglei said the name stood for a place where everyone keeps their heart. “We hope for miracles from the pen,” he said. He added that “purity, honesty and dynamism will be its three core tenets.”
Xiaomi is the world’s number four smartphone maker with a market share of close to 6% behind Samsung, Apple and China’s Huawei and quarterly shipments of 30.5 million in the second quarter of last year, according to Strategy Analytics.
In November 2014, Xiaomi announced that it planned to invest $1 billion in the entertainment sector, as part of a plan to vertically integrate
"We want to repeat the success of Xiaomi’s hardware integration model in the television industry,” said Chen Tong, who was hired to spearhead the entertainment diversification. Within a month of that statement, Xiaomi had bought investment stakes in rival streaming video platforms Youku Tudou and iQIYI. It has since also moved into the smart TV sector.