Hong Kong: Fresh from losing the chance to buy Paramount, Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin is hoping a Japanese partner may prove more suitable. Sony, however, may not be the answer Dalian Wanda seeks in its quest to capture global cinema goers’ wallets.

The companies will collaborate on movie projects, with Wanda investing in productions from Sony Pictures as part of an open-ended partnership, the Chinese company announced. For Sony, the upside is clear. Its film unit will receive some much-needed TLC (tender loving care) after operating income slumped 40 per cent last fiscal year.

Wanda is the world’s biggest cinema operator, so a partnership would also help Sony expand its reach, especially in China. Friends in Beijing might even help Sony skirt a rule that permits just 34 foreign-made movies a year into the nation, too.

But while property-cum-entertainment group Wanda may reign supreme in China, things aren’t always a wonderland there. Blockbusters like the Bourne series and ‘Ice Age’ are helping Asia’s largest economy emerge from a box-office slump. After tumbling in the second quarter, takings fell another 18 per cent in July before recovering 12 per cent last month.

And while Wanda Cinema’s overall box-office revenue climbed 41 per cent year-on-year in the first half, outperforming domestic revenue growth of 18 per cent, that’s shy of a 43 per cent rise in the same period last year.

Gross margins of Wanda’s box-office segment dropped by 3.9 per cent year-on-year, while average revenue per screen declined by 15 per cent. Analysts at HSBC put that down to the purchase of small players with poor profitability in the first half.

Wanda’s larger acquisitions aren’t always money-spinners either. Legendary Entertainment, the Hollywood studio it bought for about $3.5 billion earlier this year, isn’t in the black and so far the only triumph has been Australia’s Hoyts, which made $20 million in the first half, up from about $7.5 million in the three months to December 31.

Turning Legendary around will prove a challenge. It doesn’t matter how many screens you might own, for a cinema company, success ultimately comes down to hit movies, along with the advertising and franchise income that follows.

That’s something Sony lacks. Its top Hollywood movie this year — ‘Angry Birds’ — grossed just $346 million (Dh1.27 billion), a fraction of top-spot holder Disney’s ‘Captain America: Civil War’, which raked in $1.2 billion.

‘Warcraft’, the first Legendary movie after Wanda’s acquisition, was saved from global failure by ticket takings in China, but still lost about $15 million, according to ‘Hollywood Reporter’. Increasingly, more and more industry watchers say estimates of China becoming the world’s biggest film market by 2017 may be jumping the gun.

In searching for an appropriate movie date-night partner, finding the right fit has never been so important. Sony, it seems, just doesn’t have the mojo Wanda’s looking for.