Bona Film Group, a studio based in China, has extended its deal with the U.S.-based TSG Entertainment Finance to invest in several Hollywood productions, including new titles in the Avatar and Deadpool franchises.
The deal, which was inked on New Year’s Eve, has been described as an extension of an arrangement Bona and TSG has had since 2015. Specific details about the terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.
Executives from both firms hailed the move. Bona’s chair and CEO Yu Dong said “We are very excited to continue our eight-year partnership with TSG. Through this expanded venture, Bona will become a new participant via TSG in the Avatar and Deadpool franchise and continue our involvement in The Planet of The Apes and Alien franchise in addition to many other dynamic upcoming films.”
And Chip Seelig, a managing partner of TSG Entertainment, said “I am thrilled to continue our partnership with Bona and Yu Dong, one of our oldest and most important relationships in the film industry. The Chinese market provides us with rare opportunities, and we also hope to help further develop [it].”
In the earlier deal, Bona agreed to provide $235 million to co-invest with TSG in a wide variety of films, including The Martian, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Greatest Showman, War for the Planet of the Apes, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Alien: Covenant, and X-Men: Apocalypse. Most of these titles were distributed by 20th Century Fox.
The Bona-TSG deal is one of the few that has survived recent upheavals in Chinese- American film collaborations. Similar deals have become casualties of the trade and technology wars between the two countries. In 2018, Beijing effectively called a halt to many such projects, but Bona is one of the few studios that has continued. It is known as a significant producer of commercial and patriotic films known as “main melody” movies.
Though the studio invested in Quentin Tarentino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the film’s release was delayed in China when Bruce Lee’s daughter objected to the way her father was depicted.
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