Latest update October 1st, 2015 6:46 PM
Huayi Plans to Invest up to $150M into Studio 8
WANG Zhongjun from Huayi Bros. revealed that the company will unite investors to inject $120 million to $150 million into Robinov’s Studio 8 as an investment entity as a section of Huayi Brothers. The structure of Huayi’s investment is something in between a company and a capital fund.
In a recent interview, Wang Zhongjun said: “To go global is a direction that Huayi has been always considered about. Huayi has reacheda market share of 25% to 30% in the domestic film market, which is a large proportion. However, Chinese films only take a share of 5% in global market; in a long term it is more necessary for Huayi to explore the overseas market.” Nevertheless, in the September issue of The Chinese Film Market last year, when Wang Zhongjun was asked whether Huayi will continue to focus its business in Mainland China, his answer was“for sure…The Chinese market is still our priority.”
Unlike Wang’s conservative attitude towards the overseas market a half year ago, now his act seems to be more aggressive. He indicated that the Studio 8 cooperation would be a great opportunity for Huayi to produce big blockbusters such as Inception, instead of co-productions which can hardly access the mainstream production and distribution channels in the US.
In addition to Huayi’ s attempt to make international films, films adapted from online games also will be a new focus. In 2009, Huayi acquired mobile game company Yinhan Technology as Wang regarded the combination of films and games is quite natural considering that these game players would be potential audiences. “Yinhan has successfully launched a game “Shen Mo (Rappelz)”, and there will be a film with the same name to be released this year; they can be converted to each other as there would be no copyrights issue,” Wang said.
Huayi has been establishing independent production studios for an individual producer or director, and they pick over some projects to invest after evaluating project proposals. Huayi normally injects a small amount of money into projects for the sake of first look rights at the first place; however, unlike pure financial institutions, it will get involve into project management and operation when the project is ready to work.
In recent few years, Huayi also expands its reach in film-related industry. In 2012, it invested a commercial tourism project, Feng Xiaogang’s Movie-Themed Town in Haikou, and it opened for the public during the Spring Festival in 2014. Wang Zhongjun said: “90% of Huayi’ revenue in films comes from the box office, so there are more possibilities to integrate films with tourism, design, clothing and so on.”
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