Legendary Entertainment

**Legendary Pictures Productions, LLC**, doing business as **Legendary Entertainment** or simply **Legendary**, is an American film production and mass media company based in Burbank, California. The company was founded by Thomas Tull in 2000 and in 2005 concluded an agreement to co-produce and co-finance films with Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures. Since 2016, Legendary has been a subsidiary of the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group.

## History

Thomas Tull founded Legendary Entertainment after raising $500 million from private equity firms.[1] It was one of the first companies of its kind to pair major motion picture production with major Wall Street private equity and hedge fund investors, including ABRY Partners, AIG Direct Investments, Bank of America Capital Investors, Columbia Capital, Falcon Investment Advisors, and M/C Venture Partners.[2] Legendary Pictures, Inc. was incorporated in California in 2000[3] and in 2005 it signed an agreement with Warner Bros.to co-produce and co-finance up to 40 films over seven years.[2] In 2010, Tull, Fidelity Investments, and Fortress Investment Groupbought all the shares of the original investors. The buyout also included a $25 million-investment by Orange Sky Golden Harvest Entertainment. Following the transaction, Tull became the largest shareholder, thus enabling him to more easily direct the company's operations.[4] Golden Harvest later sold its stake in the company for $30 million.[5] In 2011, Accel Partners bought $40 million-worth of shares and Accel partner Jim Breyer joined the company's board of directors.[6] That same year the company was reported to have been valued at more than $1 billion.[2] In September 2011, Chief Creative Officer Jon Jashni was appointed to the new position of President.[7] In December 2012, Waddell & Reed bought around 20% of Legendary's shares for $443 million.[8]

In July 2013, Legendary reached an agreement with Universal Pictures in which it would market, co-finance, and distribute Legendary's films for five years starting in 2014, the year that Legendary's similar agreement with Warner Bros. expired.[9] In October 2014, SoftBank bought $250 million shares, a 10% stake, in Legendary. The transaction increased the company's total value to around $3 billion.[10]

In 2014, Legendary acquired the TV producer Asylum Entertainment, which made ESPN's *30 for 30* and miniseries *The Kennedys*, for $100 million, but Asylum Entertainment will continue operating as a separate company.[11][12]

On January 11, 2016, Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group announced that it concluded an agreement with shareholders to acquire Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion, making it the largest acquisition of an American media company by a Chinese firm.[13]

On January 17, 2017, it was announced that Tull had exited as Legendary Entertainment CEO.[14] He was replaced by the senior vice president of Wanda's cultural industry group, Jack Gao, as interim CEO.[15]

On October 17, 2017, it was reported that Gao stepped down from his positions at Legendary Entertainment and Wanda Group.[16][17]The resignation comes after an announcement by Wanda's chairman Wang Jianlin earlier that year that Wanda would refocus its investments onto the Chinese domestic market in an attempt to "actively respond to the call of the country".[16] This, in turn, is thought to be a consequence of the Chinese government banning Chinese banks to provide loans to Wanda Group's foreign operations intended to stop the firm's offshore acquisition plans.[18]

On December 5, 2017, it was announced that Joshua Grode had been named as Legendary Entertainment CEO.

## Filmography

Legendary Entertainment has produced 53 feature films. In addition, the company is also in the process of producing an additional five films and is developing various other projects. Of the 53 feature films produced, 48 have had theatrical releases, one has had a direct-to-video release, and four have had video on demand releases. Note that in most cases the distributor or distributors also co-produced the film. In all cases, the film listed is a work of Legendary Pictures, unless the film's name is followed by a subscript "E", indicating that Legendary East is the production company or a subscript "D", indicating that Legendary Digital Media is the production company. The box office column reflects the worldwide gross for the theatrical release of the film in United States dollars, not adjusted for inflation.

### Upcoming films

For the purposes of this list, films that are "in production" and pre-production are films whose principal photography is ongoing or finished. Films in development are not included in this list.

 2023