Arnold Schwarzenegger will make a return
to the big screen next year in the first instalment of a new Terminator
trilogy backed by Tencent Pictures.
The entertainment arm of the
Shenzhen-based internet giant will work with US production firm Skydance
Media to revive the Terminator movie franchise, according to Tencent
Pictures CEO Cheng Wu.
Tencent invested in Skydance earlier
this year for an undisclosed sum, and as part of the arrangement will
co-finance movies, TV shows and video game projects while lending their
expertise to each other in their respective countries.
China’s tech giants are engaged in
intense competition to acquire and create content, whether movies, TV
dramas or games, to attract and retain users across their various
platforms.
At stake is the world’s largest internet
market with almost 800 million users, with the growing number of
younger digital-native consumers more willing to spend on content.
The original Terminator movie hit the
theatres in 1984, directed by James Cameron and starring Schwarzenegger
as a cyborg assassin sent back in time to kill the future leader of
human resistance against the rise of the machines.
The movie spawned sequels, a television series, comic books and video games.
Tencent also won the copyright to
develop films, games and cartoon series for the late Chinese martial
arts novelist Gu Long’s complete works for 10 years.
Among the famous characters in Gu’s
writings are Chu Liuxiang, a Robin Hood-like martial arts expert who
uses a fan as a weapon, and Lu Xiaofeng, who can catch his enemies'
weapons between his fingers.According to iResearch, China’s digital
literature market was estimated to increase by 32 per cent to 12.8
billion yuan last year as it served an audience of 360 million users.
The research firm also estimated that
more than 90 per cent of those readers were willing to watch films and
TV series adapted from popular online literature.South China Morning
Post.
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