Former Paramount Pictures president Adam Goodman has signed on to run the U.S. operations of Le Vision Pictures, China's third-largest film studio, a source with knowledge of the hire tells The Hollywood Reporter.
The veteran Hollywood exec will spearhead Le Vision's ambitious plan to produce a slate of big-budget, English-language co-productions featuring Chinese-themed stories for a global audience.
Le Vision CEO Zhang Zhao told THR in May that he was planning to hire an experienced U.S. studio player to oversee the company's Los Angeles office, which has over 10 co-production projects in development, with hopes of partnering with "all of the U.S. studios" on production. The company's first huge bet on the global appeal of Chinese-themed, internationally produced pictures is Zhang Yimou's historical fantasy epic The Great Wall, starring Matt Damon. The biggest U.S.-China co-production to date — with an estimated budget of $160 million — the film is set to open in China in December, with a North American release to follow in February.
Goodman was first linked to Le Vision in June, as the Chinese studio was in talks to finance his upstart film venture, Dichotomy. Instead, the two parties appear to have settled on a more direct relationship. Le Vision declined to comment.
Goodman departed Paramount in February 2015, after seven years as president of the studio's Motion Picture Group. During his tenure, he oversaw the birth of the Transformers series and successfully rebooted the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek franchises, in addition to handling Brad Pitt's briefly troubled but ultimately successful World War Z.
Le Vision is the entertainment content subsidiary of LeEco, a Beijing-based technology and lifestyle conglomerate involved in everything from electric cars to TVs to smartphones and streaming video. In July, LeEco acquired American TV maker Vizio for $2 billion. Founded in 2011, Le Vision's releases at the Chinese box office include the blockbuster Tiny Times franchise, the Expendables series and this summer's biggest local hit, Time Raiders ($148 million).
The Wrap was the first to report Wednesday on Goodman's new role.