Steven Spielberg‘s Amblin Partners has entered into a new deal with China’s Alibaba in which Alibaba Pictures will take a stake in Amblin. Steven Spielberg joined a host of dignitaries in Beijing yesterday to announce the pact.
The two companies will now work together to both co-produce and co-finance new movies.
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China has been working hard in recent years to try and supplant Hollywood to become the world’s new entertainment capital. Many studios already film in China and use China’s facilities due to lower costs. Now Hollywood’s biggest movie maker of all time, Steven Spielberg, has gone so far as to partner financially with China’s leading company.
Spielberg's Amblin Partners & Alibaba Pictures will collaborate on films for international and Chinese audiences. https://t.co/hkm7Be7iG8 pic.twitter.com/dwV31wUHez
— Alibaba Group (@AlibabaGroup) October 9, 2016
Amblin is a new company formed a year ago out of the ashes of Dreamworks Studios which was established by Steven Spielberg together with David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Steven Spielberg was quoted by Reuters as telling the press in a briefing, “Some of the stories I’m hoping Jack and I can tell in this new partnership between Amblin Partners and Alibaba Pictures will be able to bring Chinese-themed stories to the American audience, and we can do co-productions between our company and your company. And we can bring more of China to America, and bring some more of America to China.”
Alibaba Pictures and Steven Spielberg's @AmblinEnt form comprehensive strategic alliance. Read more: https://t.co/wcvmuWasAE pic.twitter.com/IkqH74GhSj
— Alibaba Group (@AlibabaGroup) October 9, 2016
Alibaba’s Jack Ma said about the deal in a statement, “Among Chinese consumers, there is an increasing demand for premium global content.”
Ma also said, “I heard a lot of people say the movie industries are dead. I think that’s a lack of imagination. All the cinemas in the future are going to be changed because of technology. So people will definitely have all kinds of experiences watching movies.”
Amblin Partners is a content creation company formed by DreamWorks Studios, Participant Media, Reliance Entertainment and eOne. The company develops and produces film, television, and digital content using the Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks Pictures and Participant banners.
So now lets wait and see if Steven Spielberg will direct movies in Chinese. After all, Clint Eastwood was nominated a few years back for an Oscar for a movie which he directed entirely in Japanese.
