Proxima Media Inks Joint Venture With National Arts Studio Becomes Significant Shareholder In One Of The Largest Studios In China-National Arts, Traded On The Hong Kong Public Market

LOS ANGELES, MAY 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Proxima Media LLC has entered into collaboration agreement which sets the stage to create the first and largest worldwide East-West studio. The agreement includes Proxima acquiring a large stake in the publicly traded Studio, taking over management and building out the Studio. This includes creating state of the art production facilities, a worldwide theme park, four-star lodging, and a one of a kind worldwide travel experience, which marks a truly historic moment in the U.S. and China filmed entertainment and overall cultural relationship. Under the pact Proxima will produce up to 10 U.S. feature films with $250 Million of Equity (leveraged to over $ 1 Billion of Production capacity) at National Arts.

National Arts Entertainment, a publicly traded Hong Kong studio, sits only one hour from Hong Kong on over 1,000,000 sq meters miles of land, making it an ideal home for the world's largest physical studio. Proxima's plan includes National Arts building of replicas of the world's most famous tourist destinations including the Venice Canals, where gondola rides will be offered, skating in Central Park, Hawaii's beaches with a surf and wave pool, Hollywood Blvd.'s walk of fame, Central Paris, and many others. "This allows the hundreds of millions of local Chinese to actually travel the world and see and experience what each of these amazing places is really like, including local cuisine and experiences as if they were there, within an hour drive of their home," said a National Arts Spokesperson. "It's something most of them would never otherwise have been able to do in their lifetime."

"Each of the 'mini-cities' of the world, will be replicas with actual near perfect (non scale) buildings thus doubling as the first 'world-studio' where any production that is being shot can not only build on the vast sound stages but will no longer need to go to the expense and trouble of traveling all over the world. They will be able to use our studio and capture virtually anywhere in the world, being only one hour outside of Hong Kong," they continued.

"Never before has their been a location with the right location, cost structure, infrastructure and capabilities to perform every aspect of A-list U.S. productions in one location. From pre-production to editing and posting the largest and most sophisticated U.S. productions will shoot in entirety in one location, while saving on production costs, creating jobs and creating an entirely new economy. It also ensures that each production will have the maximum exploitation in the two largest filmed entertainment economies which insures at least a 30% increase in each films revenue."

Centrally located Xiqiao National Arts Studio opened in 2015 at Foshan in Guangdong city. It already boasts a number of unique panoramic buildings including Kowloon Walled City, A Chinese Palace, A Mansion, The Yamen, a Hong Kong Street and a Shanghai Street. It also has a burgeoning tourism business.

As part of the deal, Proxima will run, structure, and become one of, if not the, largest shareholders while consulting on all aspects of production including refurbishing the existing studios and creating the state-of-the art production and post-production facility, on an ideally-situated 100-square-mile ranch only an hour from Hong Kong. The intention is to have eight technologically-advanced sound stages, and 'ahead of the curve' post facilities. "This truly will be the start of a new era," said Proxima CEO and Founder Ryan Kavanaugh. "Now we have both the right place, the right time, and the clear demand to create both a physical and virtual east-west content powerhouse."

This ambitious deal comes on the heels of China's announcement last month that the $9 billion Hong Kong film industry will be given greater access to the mainland Chinese movie market following a relaxation of rules that had kept their films and filmmakers on a separate footing.

Upon completion of the deal, Proxima Media will become a significant owner of the publicly-listed entity. Together, they will be responsible for executing the new business plan to be known as, The World Studios.

"What Chairman Sin has accomplished here is amazing. The land, location and principle is the foundation on which the world's largest and first one-stop filming location will take place," said Kavanaugh.

Proxima Media plans to contribute its slate of 30+ pieces of IP in film and television, which it has been developing for a number of years. The films are projected to have budgets of between $15 million and $80 million USD with commercial themes and genres, starring internationally-known talent. "We are extremely excited about Proxima's slate," said Chairman Sin. "It is what a first class studio's slate should look like. For the first time we are not concerned with or focused on cultural constraints rather making commercial first class product that will achieve maximum box office in both the U.S. and China," he continued. This is a new era.

"This is a chance to get a powerful footing with an accomplished partner with vision and potential, in one of the most lucrative and fast-growing regions of the world," explains Kavanaugh. "With their infrastructure and our knowledge base, this is a complementary alliance and a synergistic home run."

"We are honored to partner with Proxima Media and its respected and visionary leader, Ryan Kavanaugh," said Chairman Sin of National Arts. "We believe that by combining our resources we will shorten our learning curve and quickly bring our studio, parks hotels and related production facilities to the highest industry standards creating the largest and most global studio in existence today." 

As part of the pact, Proxima will also recruit and retain a diverse and accomplished management team, as appropriate to the tasks defined by the expansive alliance.

Additionally, an international quality theme park, dedicated to filmmaking, will be envisioned, created and managed as part of the agreement. The huge land area and appealing geography, in the Xiqiao Mountain area, complemented by the infrastructure of actual content creation, make this a natural and cost-effective opportunity. For a fraction of the price of international travel, any Chinese citizen can visit perfect replicas and experience the look, feel, culture and cuisine of many of the world's most important areas including Paris, London, Los Angeles, New York, Venice and other landmarks—all this while being on an actual set, seeing A-list film and television productions, and having the up close and personal experience of being on a real life Hollywood set. 

The studio plans on having two hotels (currently it has a four-star 400 room hotel) a seven-star brand new facility built from the ground up for talent and VIP's and a 400-room three-star property for tourists. They will be complemented by an array of international restaurants with cuisines from the great culinary capitols of the world. In addition, the restaurants will correspond with the Great Cities of the World sets, that will serve as both production facilities and tourist attractions. An aggressive and creative merchandising program to feed the booming tourism business will also be implemented.

National Arts, one of the largest physical studios in China, already includes film production, cinema, artist management, hotels, tourism, and other entertainment entities. To complement their work and physical location, the Guangdong Provincial Government is launching, "The Guangdong Hollywood Plan," which provides film and television producers numerous subsidies and other incentives to attract filmmaking, with the intention of making the facility the largest film and television base in southern China. They also are growing their cinema business with eight theatres boasting more than 1,000 seats so far. 

"Everyone talks about doing business in and with the huge Chinese market," explains Kavanaugh, "yet there remains a business, cultural and facilities gap. With the lifting of foreign quota restrictions in China, this is a precipitous time to enter into a visionary agreement with honorable and powerful partners. The Chinese film market is already the size of the U.S. film market, its potential is vast and with our location, land and experience this becomes a game-changing alliance."

The deal was structured by and will be overseen by Jaeson Ma, Chairman of Proxima East.

Proxima Media was founded by legendary Hollywood Producer Ryan Kavanaugh who together with his colleagues has been responsible for more than 200 films, with a box office of $17 billion. Among their productions are Immortals, Social Network, Fast and the Furious, Girl with Dragon Tattoo, Salt, Wanted, Limitless, The Fighter, Mirror Mirror, Safe Haven and Beyond the Lights The Social Network, which received eight Oscar nominations. Other films include Mamma Mia! 3:10 to Yuma, Grown Ups and Dear John.

Mr. Kavanaugh is also credited with originating a number of first-of-their-kind deals that changed the film industry, including for Marvel Studios, which led to the creation of the Marvel Cinematic, Universe, that has amassed more than $17.5 billion at the worldwide box office. Mr. Kavanaugh followed-up that success with a first of its kind television pay deal with Netflix and created what is today known as the SVOD window for Netflix, which boosted Netflix's market capitalization to $10 billion USD. He was also honored with a 'Hollywood Producer of the Year' Award and was named by Variety as, 'Showman of the Year.' 

Mr. Kavanaugh has a depth of experience in China as he was instrumental in launching Sky Land Entertainment, which entered into a historic partnership with Huaxia Film Distribution Co. Ltd. to handle production and distribution of films in China and the U.S. The deal marks the only strategic alliance to date between a Hollywood film production entity and a Chinese government-sponsored company. Among Mr. Kavanaugh's other notable credits include what is now called Independent Sports & Entertainment, an integrated sports, media, entertainment and management company that represents 300 of the best athletes in the NBA, NFL and MLB and is the second-largest integrated management company in the U.S. with about $2.5 billion in player contacts. He also created the powerhouse television company, now called Critical Content, which produced hit shows such as Catfish on MTV and Limitless on CBS and under his tenure had over 40 series on the air.

National Arts Entertainment and Culture Group Limited (Listed Code: 8228) has been a top international company with its business focusing on Xiqiao National Arts Studio, film production, cinemas, artist management, hotels, tourism, wedding photography and other allied businesses.  National Arts entered the film and television entertainment market in 2008 with China and Hong Kong as its major target markets. Its diverse businesses and innovative ideation have made National Arts influential and assured their leadership in the entertainment and tourism business in the Guangdong Province.

SOURCE Proxima Media LLC