China Just Bought Your Local AMC Multiplex

As foreseen, Chinese exhibitor The Wanda Group has acquired AMC Entertainment — the second-largest theater chain in the US, comprising some 5,000 screens and 18,000 employees — from a domestic investment partnership for $2.6 billion, nearly 80 percent of which will go toward AMC's staggering debt. Pending approval by the feds in both countries, the deal will result in the world's biggest theatrical empire, one headquartered in a nation previously known as the most prodigious owner of US government debt. Come on, you know you're excited.

I mean, at least it's good for jobs? Ahem: A press release circulated late Sunday points out Wanda's commitment to retaining AMC's leadership in Kansas City, which has clearly managed the operation with unparalleled finesse and expertise. But it also alludes to the prospects of both picking up more theaters and upgrading outdated ones — a roughly $500 million pledge that would seem, between the lines, anyway, to suggest that consolidation and/or closures of underperforming venues are likely imminent. In any case it means increased dependency on Chinese cash in the form of tax revenues from 300 theaters in the States alone, handing a pretty significant chunk of regulatory leverage to a government that has evinced a disregard for such taxes on its own turf and is historically known to play hardball elsewhere. What could go wrong?

But! As Deadline's David Lieberman points out, the deal further enhances ties with IMAX, which has long invested its own capital in the thriving Chinese marketplace. You win, Christopher Nolan.

[Deadline]