Wanda Invests in Next 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Film

Just four months after buying Hollywood studio Legendary for USD 3.5 billion, Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin is now teaming up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Movie Media Group, a subsidiary of Wanda Cinema Line, announced Thursday it was co-financing Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows. Cowabunga dudes.

The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed by Dalian Wanda Group but they did indicate that there was more to come, promising more investments in Hollywood tentpoles to help "cement Wanda Cinema Line's position as a top player in the global film industry."

The news follows Alibaba’s announcement in April to invest in the Michael Bay-produced movie. Megan Fox, who once had a well-publicized falling-out with Bay during the making of the Transformers movies, will reprise her role as plucky reporter April O’Neil in Out of the Shadows.

When the last TMNT movie came to China, Fox had to bow out of the film’s premiere due, apparently, to an “allergic reaction” to what many speculated was Beijing’s polluted air.

Her spot was filled by Chinese starlet Fan Bingbing, herself a big fan of the four fictional teenage anthropomorphic turtles. Fan has not appeared in any of the TMNT films.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows is coming to North American cinemas on June 3. One would think that with financing from both Alibaba and now Wanda, it might have a chance of showing on Chinese cinema screens too.

The movie’s marketing department certainly seems prepared for the possibility., with the Weibo account for the films having been very active. They’ve made a Chinese version of the trailer and the Chinese poster says it will be screened in 3D, IMAX 3D, and CFGS (China Film Giant Screen).

Photo: Wikimedia