Latest in Bona Film Group

UPDATE 09:35 AM PST: Still nothing concrete on why the China release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has been postponed. One well-placed source in the country claims there was an appeal from Bruce Lee’s daughter Shannon Lee to Chinese authorities over the portrayal of her father, a local hero. In the movie, a…

EXCLUSIVE: In what will be one of the biggest movies on sale at Cannes, Stuart Ford’s recently minted AGC Studios will be enticing buyers with Roland Emmerich’s WWII action epic Midway, which we understand has Woody Harrelson and Mandy Moore in negotiations to star as part of a strong ensemble cast. Wes Tooke’s script…

Bona Film Group, the Chinese Company that had the biggest deal at this Cannes Film Festival with the $80M lead investment on director Roland Emmerich’s WWII battle film Midway for The Mark Gordon Co., has entered into an agreement with CAA. CAA and Bona Film Group announced the launch of a long-term film fund, with an…

EXCLUSIVE: In the biggest deal made at this Cannes Film Festival, Bona Film Group has closed a deal near $80 million to lead the investment on director Roland Emmerich's next feature Midway, based on the seminal WWII battle, for The Mark Gordon Company. The Chinese company has acquired worldwide distribution rights…

China’s Alibaba Pictures Group and Tencent Holdings have led a RMB 2.5B ($360M) funding round in Bona Film Group, valuing the leading Chinese production and distribution outfit at $2.2B. The investment is designed to help the company expand. It also comes following Bona’s delisting from the NASDAQ last April. At the…

EXCUSIVE: Set for a July 29 release through Bona Film Group in the Middle Kingdom, League of Gods is being billed as a “Chinese X-Men.” The action fantasy pic is directed by Koan Xu and boasts a starry cast that includes Jet Li, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Fan Bingbing, Louis Koo, Angelababy and Xu Qing. There’s also CGI work…

Fresh off its Oscar night success, Alejandro G. Inarritu’s The Revenant got some more good news with the announcement the film will get a release in China. China’s Bona Film Group posted on the Weibo social media platform that it will open film in the Middle Kingdom on March 18. Revenant likely will have to undergo…

What to some sounded a lot like censorship morphed into a valuable asset as a panel dedicated to financing and distributing films in China today kicked off the 7th annual Produced By conference on the Paramount Pictures lot in Hollywood. Panelist Ellen Eliasoph president of Village Roadshow Entertainment Group Asia…

EXCLUSIVE– Acclaimed international commercial director Antony Hoffman has set up his feature directorial debut Fox Hunt with Fox International Pictures’ president Sanford Panitch. Panitch, widely respected as one of the savviest studio execs working in the international arena, sparked to Hoffman’s pitch about making a…

The Singapore Media Festival today was the scene for the announcement of the latest China-focused media fund — and this one comes with a twist. Bona Film Group chairman Yu Dong, private equity firm Tembusu Partners and Singapore media entrepreneur Calvin Cheng have joined forces to launch a $100M fund aimed at China's…

U.S. shares of China’s Bona Film Group are up 7.7% this morning after the distributor announced two deals that help to consolidate ownership: Its founder and CEO, Yu Dong, agreed to pay $71.4M for the 19.3% stake owned by 21st Century Fox. Separately, Bona plans to sell a 13.3% interest to a Chinese investment group, F…

Principal photography is underway in Shanghai on a remake of the comedy Bride Wars, a Chinese-language co-production between Fox International Productions and Bona Film Group. Directed by Tony Chan, and starring Angelababy and Ni Ni in the roles originally played by Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway in 2009, Bride Wars is…