Alibaba Pictures to Remake 'Night at the Museum'

Fergus Ryan | Apr 26, 2016 4:00 pm | Add a comment | 2221 reads

Jack Ma's Alibaba Pictures has acquired the rights to remake the Night at the Museum (博物馆奇妙夜) franchise, reports the Hollywood Reporter.

Casting and a director yet to be secured for the remake which is in its very early stages.

Box office earnings for the kid-friendly Ben Stiller comedy, which first hit screens in 2006, steadily decreased as the franchise progressed in the US.

But that trend was reversed in China, where the first film earned USD 8.3 million and the third feature grossed USD 47 million.

Alibaba’s first foray into the international market came with an investment in the Paramount Pictures’ Tom Cruise-starrer, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation last year.

And just last week it announced an investment in the forthcoming Paramount films Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows and Star Trek Beyond.

The company is also distributing The Last Race, which features a number of Beijing-based foreign actors.

In early April, Alibaba Pictures said they were teaming up with Los Angeles-based Skydance to shoot The Flying Tigers, a film about the American Volunteer Group that aided the Chinese Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek against the Japanese during WWII.

Photo: PMC Deadline