What to watch for in the overseas film industry in 2019:

1. Staying alive

One of the most common refrains I hear from independent sales and distribution companies is how tough it is just to survive these days. As Netflix soars and studios, theaters and audiences continue to gravitate toward sequels, prequels and spinof…

Event cinema specialist Trafalgar Releasing has scored another big documentary result, this time with Burn The Stage: The Movie, about K-Pop phenomenon BTS. Released globally on November 15 in a limited engagement, the film has drawn in 1.4M admissions in more than 79 territories and 2,650 movie theaters for a box…

AMC Entertainment’s non-Executive Chairman, Lincoln Zhang, has resigned from his position at North America’s leading exhibition chain. Also known as Zhang Lin, the exec is expected to transition to a new role at AMC parent Dalian Wanda Group. AMC noted the change in a regulatory filing this week.

Zhang was Chairman of…

EXCLUSIVE: Writer-director Chen Sicheng's Detective Chinatown 2, the sequel to his 2016 hit, has nearly quadrupled that film’s box office to become the No. 3 movie ever in China. With $464M through Thursday, the movie has surpassed The Fate Of The Furious to fall in line behind Wolf Warrior 2 ($854M) and The Mermaid…

China's Dalian Wanda Group is to sell its Beverly Hills development that was once pegged to become its Hollywood headquarter.

The group, run by Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin, is reportedly selling both is California development and its complex in Chicago as it offloads a number of global property assets after drawin…

Tencent Holdings is leading a consortium of investors to acquire a 14% equity stake in Wanda Commercial Properties Co, the flagship subsidiary of Wang Jianlin’s Dalian Wanda Group, for RMB 34B ($5.37B). The move by Tencent, Suning Holdings, JD.com and Sunac China Holdings to buy out minority private investors will…

EXCLUSIVE: James Madigan is set to direct the space station action title Starfall which is aiming for a May 2018 production start.

Starfall is based on David Coggeshall’s script with rewrites by Jordan and Aaron Kandell (Moana). 

Madigan has worked in visual effects for over 20 years on such films as Iron Man 2 and The…

EXCLUSIVE: This is an important week for China, and Hollywood. October 18 kicks off the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party. There will be much fanfare, with an opening ceremony broadcast live on China Central Television. The Congress is meant to unveil new leadership and set a blueprint for national…

EXCLUSIVE: Last year, Dailan Wanda Group joined with veteran filmmakers Hawk Koch and Mark Gordon to create an independent/awards-caliber film division called The O Project. The first film was to be the $12.5M-budgeted drama that had Russell Crowe and David Oyelowo negotiating to star. Arc of Justice, which was to go…

EXCLUSIVE: Chinese government leaders have placed tight restrictions on some of their biggest players who have been infusing money into film production, and Hollywood is now fearful of where the money may come from to finance its projects. At the center of the storm is Beijing-based real estate conglom Dalian Wanda Gro…

Wang Jianlin's Dalian Wanda Group is on the move again. After the Chinese real estate and entertainment conglomerate said it was selling off $9.3B in hotel and theme park assets to Sunac China, it has also revealed plans for its Wanda Film division to acquire Wanda Media via a share issue.

Trading in Wanda Film Holdin…