Tag Archives: Alibaba

Alibaba Invests In Irish Startup Specializing In Cinema Analytics

Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Aman Jain

Alibaba Pictures has made an investment in Showtime Analytics, an Irish movie data startup, through Yueke (a.k.a. Finixx) – its cinema ticketing system subsidiary. The company stated that Showtime and Finixx will collaborate to develop products specific to the Chinese cinema industry, according to e27.

Showtime Analytics was founded in 2014, and it provides data analytics products and services to cinema owners and film distributors. This allows them to collate, analyze and visualize their operational data in real time to deliver insights that drive improved business performance. Currently, the Irish company employs 30 full-time staff, notes e27.

screen-shot-2016-12-07-at-10-50-17-pmShowtime CEO Richie Power said, “We want to help cinema owners and film distributors to unlock the potential of their data and help them understand more about the types of films being made, how they’re being made and marketed, and how audiences are responding to them.”

Yueke is a leading cinema ticket software system service in China. It serves more than 2000 theaters and several online movie-ticketing platforms such as Maoyan, Mtime, Alipay, Gewara, WeChat Movie Ticket and QQ Movie Ticket through its Finixx system. In 2015, Alibaba Pictures fully acquired the company for RMB830 million (around $120 million).

Yueke General Manager Li Xiangxiong said that the merger of Showtime’s capabilities with Finixx and the advantages that Big Data from the Alibaba ecology offers will help Yueke expand its portfolio of data products and services.

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Alibaba Pictures, currently valued at $9.6 billion, has been aggressively investing in building out assets across the film and television production, distribution, and ticketing line. In July, the company launched an investment fund of $300 million with a focus on film and television production.

Recently, Alibaba’s film and entertainment arm acquired a stake in Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners. In the past, Alibaba’s film and entertainment arm has made investments in major Hollywood blockbusters like Star Trek Beyond and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

This is its second investment outside China and the first by its subsidiary Yueke/Finixx. It is expected that by the year’s end, China will overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest movie market.

(Source: http://www.valuewalk.com)

 

Alibaba Pictures, Amblin to co-produce films for global, Chinese audiences

Posted by Larry Gleeson

Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Paul Tait and Clelia Oziel

BEIJING: Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners and Alibaba Pictures Group Ltd, the film unit of Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, said on Sunday they will co-produce and finance films for global and Chinese audiences.

They will also collaborate on the marketing, distribution and merchandising of Amblin Partner films in China, the companies said in a joint statement.

Amblin Partners creates film, television and digital content under the Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks Pictures and Participant Media brands.

Big Chinese companies including Dalian Wanda Group Co are looking to bring more Western films and movie-making prowess into China even as they seek to expand their footprint in Hollywood.

China’s masses have the ability to keep Hollywood movies afloat, industry watchers say. They expect China to soon surpass the United States as the world’s biggest movie market.

This year’s ‘Warcraft’, which was a box office flop in the United States, raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in China, making it one of the country’s highest-grossing films of the year.

“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,” Spielberg said at a briefing in Beijing.

“And we can bring more of China to America, and bring some more of America to China.”

Hong Kong-listed Alibaba Pictures has yet to release any films, although the company formerly known as ChinaVision Media Group Ltd has several projects in production.

Alibaba Pictures began investing in Hollywood films in 2015 with its stake in ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’. It was an investor in this year’s blockbusters ‘Star Trek Beyond’ and ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows’.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group paid about US$800 million for a controlling stake in ChinaVision Media in 2014.

Under the terms of the partnership, Alibaba Pictures will also acquire a minority stake in Amblin Partners, which is chaired by Spielberg, the award-winning U.S. movie director and producer.

Dalian Wanda, the conglomerate controlled by China’s richest man Wang Jianlin, is partnering with Sony Pictures under which Wanda will market Sony Pictures’ films and co-finance some upcoming movie releases of Sony Corp’s film unit in China.

In January, Wanda paid US$3.5 billion for a controlling stake in U.S. film studio Legendary Entertainment. The group has also since said it would start co-investing in global blockbusters next year.

“I heard a lot of people say the movie industries are dead. I think that’s a lack of imagination,” Ma said at the briefing. “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.” – Reuters

(Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com)