Alibaba Pictures to fund movies with Paramount, Italian director

Alibaba Pictures, the entertainment subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, is ratcheting up Chinese investments in overseas movie projects this year with two new major Hollywood deals and a European co-production venture.

Hong Kong-listed Alibaba Pictures on Monday said it has agreed to invest in two new productions under Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows and Star Trek Beyond – following their successful partnership in Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation, a global box office hit released last year.

The company also said it has forged a deal to jointly make a movie with famed Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, who helmed Cinema Paradiso and The Legend of 1900, as its initial foray into the European film industry.

The financial terms of those initiatives were not disclosed. Both deals were announced on the sidelines of the Sixth Beijing International Film Festival, an eight-day event that concludes on Saturday.

Zhang Qiang, the chief executive at Alibaba Pictures, said the company was focused on developing “global blockbusters” and looked forward to “partnering with more outstanding directors from different countries”.

It is a strategy that Hangzhou-based parent Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, has backed amid a lingering economic slowdown in China.