On the evening of December 12, Wanda Film announced that the actual controller of the company was changed from Wang Jianlin to Ke Liming. At this point, the former richest man said goodbye to the cinema chain that had brought him infinite scenery and made him place infinite expectations.
From the establishment of Wanda Cinema Line in 2005 to the world's first cinema chain in 2016, Wang Jianlin has broken through various policy barriers and industry restrictions, overcome countless cross-border integration and cross-border business problems, and reflected the pattern and ability of top entrepreneurs.
At its peak, Hollywood's most influential magazine took "The Chairman" as the title of his cover photo; His Qingdao Film Capital opened, and Nicole Kidman and Xiao Lizi came to cheer; Warner, Fox, and Universal bosses wore suits and ties to meet him.
And Wang Jianlin himself also successfully came out of the circle with hot topics such as singing rock and roll at the annual meeting, "small target" emojis, and once became a top Internet celebrity alongside Wang Sicong. Behind the gimmick is his efforts to transform from a real estate boss to an entertainment tycoon, and Wanda's attempt to transform from a real estate company to a cultural and entertainment company.
At that time, Wang Jianlin said that "in the past 100 years, none of the world's large real estate companies have successfully transformed, and Wanda has rewritten business history and successfully transformed into a service-oriented enterprise". At that time, Wanda had four major groups of commerce, culture, finance and network technology, and spared no effort to "de-real estate".
Things do not turn out the way you want. From surviving with a broken arm in 2017 to being cleared out in 2023, Wanda has withdrawn from the cinema chain all the way, which is due to both the film industry and the changes in the general environment. Wang Jianlin is still the entrepreneur who is decisive in killing, but "the situation is stronger than people".
Before withdrawing from the cinema chain, Wanda's network technology group and financial group had disappeared one after another. After withdrawing from the cinema chain, Wanda's proportion of industries other than real estate and commercial real estate has shrunk significantly, and the transformation has been abandoned halfway.
Forced to Liangshan
Wang Jianlin has a lot of hobbies, singing, calligraphy and painting, football, he has played some famous games. But he doesn't like to watch movies, and Wanda's foray into movies is "forced to do business".
Wanda started out in real estate development, but Wang Jianlin recognized early on the shortcomings of the business model of residential development. He aimed at the world's top 500, and at that time, there were no developers in the top 500. On the one hand, this is because of the maturity of urbanization in the West; Residential development, on the other hand, is a one-time income with no ongoing cash flow.
In May 2000, Wanda Group held a strategic transformation meeting and decided to enter commercial real estate to create long-term stable cash flow. Since then, Wang Jianlin has designed Wanda Plaza, a commercial complex, which has prospered to this day.
Unlike today's "shopping malls are eaten", 20 years ago, shopping malls had the most customer attraction effect of department stores and entertainment and leisure formats centered on cinemas. department stores, Wanda and Walmart formed a strategic partnership; Theaters, Wanda also wants to find a giant to cooperate.
In early 2004, Wanda and Time Warner signed an agreement to jointly develop movie theaters. However, due to the policy at the time, foreign investors could not control Chinese cinemas, and Warner finally decided to withdraw.
Another reason for Warner's exit wasAt that time, the Chinese film market was too small, and the box office in China was only more than 100 million US dollars.
Wang Jianlin had no choice but to find domestic cinema chains to cooperate, and successively negotiated with four radio and television groups, with Wanda as the owner and rented to radio and television cheaply. At that time, most of the domestic cinema chains were public institutions, which were subsidized by financial subsidies, and they had many concerns about cooperation with private enterprises and expansion in other places. Wang Jianlin talked for a while, and finally talked about Shanghai Radio and Television, signed a close development agreement, and Shanghai Radio and Television paid tens of millions of deposits.
Who knew that within a few months, Shanghai Radio and Television changed its president, and the new leader had other ideas, and Wang Jianlin returned the deposit.
However, at that time, Wanda Plaza, which was gradually spreading across the country, already had a number of cinemas built and under construction. In desperation, Wanda was "forced to go to Liangshan" and rolled up her sleeves to do it herself.
In 2005, Wanda Cinema Line was established. At that time, the film market was in a booming period, and Huayi Brothers and Guangguang Media emerged in film production; The cinema market is a group of heroes, Shanghai Lianhe, Beijing New Film Association, China Film Xingmei, Dadi Cinema, Jinyi, Bona, etc.
Wanda, which is not favored by the industry, "one force to reduce ten meetings", with the huge amount of money and the cost advantage of self-construction and self-use, Wanda Plaza has been opened, and Wanda Cinema Line has become popular, and it only took three years to rush to the second place in the industry.
It was from 2005 that China's film industry entered a period of rapid growth, with a growth rate of more than 35% almost every year from 2006 to 2015. Wang Jianlin himself said that Wanda Cinema was "right in time".
After that, Wanda began to advance to the upstream of the film industry, trying to build a complete film industry system. In 2009, Wanda Film and Television was established, involved in the whole industry chain business such as film and television, production, distribution, and screening, and participated in the production of many popular films such as "Charlotte's Troubles" and "Detective Chinatown".
By 2012, Wanda surpassed the Chinese movie star Mei and sat on the top spot in domestic theaters. In the same year, Wanda established a cultural industry group, which includes cultural tourism, film industry, stage performances, theme parks, etc. Three years later, Wanda Cinema Line landed on the small and medium-sized board, which was once highly sought after.
In addition to its commercial success, Wanda has also brought some changes to China's cinemas. Wanda Cinema Line has raised the service and technical level of Chinese cinemas by introducing new technologies such as IMAX, laser, and giant screen. In the first era of Chinese films, in the trend of consumption upgrading, Wanda Cinema Line is the "most beautiful boy" on the street of movies.
Go overseas
In 2012, Wang Jianlin began to make a large overseas merger and acquisition, acquiring AMC, the second largest cinema chain in the United States, for $2.6 billion, and entered Hollywood in one fell swoop.
Cross-border mergers and acquisitions are never easy, not to mention that Wang Jianlin is a real estate "tyrant" from China in the eyes of Hollywood. Former Wanda executives recalledWhen Wang Jianlin first arrived in Hollywood, he was dressed in a suit and tie, accompanied by a group of people in black, which was incompatible with Hollywood's literary and casual atmosphere. Not only do they often eat behind closed doors with the big guys, but the people they make appointments with don't pay much attention to it.
Wang Jianlin withstood cold eyes and ridicule, and after winning AMC with a higher bid, he transformed all the seats in the theater into leather sofas, the screen with IMAX, and the sound into 12-channel Dolby sound with a wave of his hand. Soaring attendance and more expensive movie tickets have turned AMC into a profit in its first year, doubling its stock price in more than a year after it was listed.
Americans are also strong, and Wang Jianlin, who holds the head cinema chain and checkbook, suddenly became an upstart in Hollywood. At the launching ceremony of Qingdao Film Metropolis in 2013, the stars were shining brightly, and the stars were gathered, including Isaac, chairman of the Academy of Sciences, Michael Robinson, COO of the Motion Picture Association of America, chairmen or presidents of Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Paramount, etc., as well as superstars such as Nicole Kidman and Leonardo.
In 2015, Wang Jianlin spent $3.5 billion to acquire Legendary Pictures, which owns IP such as "Warcraft" and "King Kong", becoming the first Chinese company to own a major Hollywood film company.
Subsequently, Wanda successively purchased Hoyts, the second largest cinema chain in Australia, Odeon & UCI, the largest cinema chain in Europe, Carmichael Cinemas in the United States, and the Nordic Cinema Group. After the merger, Wanda has more than 900 cinemas and more than 10,000 screens, accounting for 12% of the global box office market, and becoming the "world's first cinema chain".
In just a few years, Wanda has grown from a joke in the eyes of Hollywood bigwigs to a pivotal giant. Warner, Fox, Universal's boss,These bigwigs, who usually dress casually, will wear suits and ties to meet Wang Jianlin.
Wang Jianlin is also changing to integrate with Hollywood. He has been interviewed by foreign media in a high-profile manner, frequently appeared on the covers of foreign magazines, lectured at top international universities, compiled his entrepreneurial experience and business ideas into a book, and published an English version He is trying to get closer to the international market, creating a more transparent and open image of entrepreneurs, and also building momentum for the transformation of the group. However, if you say too much, you will lose, and while he shows off his personality, he also brings some negative effects.
After many efforts, Wang Jianlin's public image is gradually changing. At the 2016 and 2017 Wanda annual meetings, Wang Jianlin sang to his heart's content, and the internal ** was unexpectedly reported"The richest man sings rock 'n' roll" went viral on the Internet, allegedly outnumbering Uncle Bird's horseback dance.
Wanda, which is known for its militarized management, has also begun to loosen its corporate culture. Wanda has a strict dress code, but this rule began to be relaxed in 2015: employees in the performing arts and Internet business units are not as strict as those in real estate companies, and their working hours are more flexible.
With the pace of overseas acquisitions, a group of foreign executives came to Wanda. At the 2016 Wanda Annual Meeting, Gao Qunyao, CEO of the International Business Department of Wanda Culture Group, proposed that overseas personnel arrange other activities in addition to participating in the collective meeting. He said that a group of ignorant foreigners, followed by hundreds of Chinese executives, sat down collectively and applauded in unison, a procedural model that is unimaginable for foreigners. This opinion was also granted by Wang Jianlin. He hopes that Wanda's transformation will be internationally recognized.
Wang Jianlin's cinematic ambitions don't stop there. He has approached the shareholders of some of the "Big Six" companies in Hollywood, and has launched an offer for DCP Group, which owns well-known IP such as the Golden Globe Awards, the National ** Awards, and the Billboard ** Awards, but all of them have failed for some reason.
Let go gradually
In 2017, Wanda Cinema changed its name to Wanda Film, and planned to merge Wanda Film and Time.com. This year, according to Wanda's own caliber, the total income of the cultural industry reached 637800 million yuan, accounting for 28 percent of the group's total revenue1%, which has become another pillar industry of the group after commercial real estate.
But just after June 2017, the situation took a turn for the worse. Wang Jianlin began to "survive with a broken arm". In addition to the well-known cultural tourism project sold to Sunac and the hotel sold to R&F, Wanda also has a stake in AMC and a part of Wanda Film's equity.
In 2017, AMC began to turn from prosperity to decline, and there was a loss, and at this time, Wanda had no time to take care of overseas business. By May 2021, Wang Jianlin basically cleared AMC.
After almost all of its overseas real estate and entertainment projects were emptied, Wanda had a short respite. However, after the total box office of Chinese films reached 60 billion in 2018, growth stagnated. By the outbreak of the epidemic, the cinema business plummeted, and the film industry suffered a cold snap. Wanda Movies is no longer as brave as it used to be.
With the recovery of consumption after the epidemic, Wanda's various business formats have shown a rebound momentum. In the real estate thunderstorm since 2021, Wanda's name has not appeared in the list of defaulting real estate companies, and the outside world generally regards Wang Jianlin as a representative of a strong man with a broken wrist, praising his courage and foresight. Some people also think that Wang Jianlin is a blessing in disguise.
However, the listing of Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management has forced Wang Jianlin into a corner. The heavy debt burden and the repurchase pressure of 38 billion yuan have made Wanda Group unable to bear it in the real estate downturn.
In recent years, Wanda has continued to sell Wanda Film's equity and Wanda Plaza assets piecemeal, until the end of 2023, when it will hand over the controlling stake in Wanda Film.
With the change of ownership of Wanda Films, Wang Jianlin completely bid farewell to the "world's first cinema" that year. His desire to turn into an entertainment tycoon, Wanda's vision of transforming into an international cultural giant, was also dashed.
Looking back, Wang Jianlin relied on the huge amount of money brought by real estate dividends to make large-scale acquisitions in the overseas cinema industry, which attracted the attention of the global entertainment industry and once explored a new path for the transformation of real estate companies.
The film industry has cultural significance beyond business. After Wanda acquired Legend, the first blockbuster film launched was "The Great Wall" directed by Zhang Yimou. The box office and word-of-mouth of this ** are not as expected, but the story of Hollywood first-line actor Matt Damon and well-known Chinese actresses teaming up to fight exotic monsters on the Great Wall itself contains strong cultural implications.
In an interview with Fortune magazine in 2013, Wang Jianlin said, "Most industries have ceilings, but the cultural industry is an industry without ceilings." "The fighting spirit is overflowing. If its film industry can continue, it may open up another way for China's cultural export.
However, there is a high degree of uncertainty in cross-border film and television investment, and in the 80s of the last century, Japanese capital also entered Hollywood, and finally returned home.
Although Wang Jianlin's film dream is disillusioned, his exploration of the transformation of large-scale real estate companies is still extremely valuable. And Wanda's advance and retreat in the cinema line once again confirms the sentence: there is no XX era, only XX in the era. (This article was first published by Hu Runfeng).