The Chairman Will See You Now - Wang Jianlin

What does Wanda Group’s CEO want? To own a studio. Or at least invest in all of them. No. 1 on THR’s inaugural China Power list, the country’s richest man sat down in his Beijing office to talk Nicole Kidman (his ‘muse’), Donald Trump (‘not extremely successful’) and his ambitious plan to pour billions into Hollywood.

- Patrick Brzeski

Wang Jianlin, China’s richest man, normally doesn’t go to the movies. He does, however, make one exception — for his 90-year-old mother. Their trips to the cinema are the rare occasions each year when the notoriously driven chairman of Chinese real estate conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group fully checks out from work.

“I won’t be disturbed at all,” he says emphatically. “Because the time is to be spent with my mom. Filial piety is an important Chinese virtue.”

This may come as a surprise to Hollywood. After all, Wang has aggressively — some might say relentlessly — positioned himself at the forefront of China’s unprecedented push into the U.S. entertainment sector. After splashing out $2.6 billion for the acquisition of North American theater chain AMC Entertainment in 2013, Wanda methodically has picked off acquisition targets at various links in the entertainment value chain — from movie houses to a $3.5 billion deal for Burbank-based studio Legendary Entertainment to distribution, theme parks, digital marketing, merchandising and the pending $1 billion acquisition of Dick Clark Productions (owned by THR’s parent company) — not to mention building the world’s largest film studio, for $8.2 billion, on China’s northeast coast.

Wang also has made no secret of his desire to own a major American studio. But rather than wait idly for one of the majors to make itself amenable to a takeover (he openly expressed interest in acquiring a majority stake in Paramount), Wang has, in characteristic fashion, decided to take aggressive action now. He is preparing to establish a new multi billion-dollar investment fund to pour capital into the film slates of all six major Hollywood studios.