exclusive: Vasco Xu, former CEO of Legendary Entertainment, joins Hong Kong business executive Brian Cheng and Chinese venture capitalist Sun Ge to launch an international production venture in Los Angeles and Beijing, Al Fateh Entertainment.
Cheng and Sun will serve as co-founders, with Xu as co-founder and creative director to oversee corporate affairs, creative development, production, marketing, distribution, and franchise management. Cheng is a member of one of Hong Kong’s largest business families, while Sun is the founder of Chinese venture capital firm Grains Valley.
Xu said the company will develop and produce feature films and series in both English and Chinese for the international and domestic Chinese market. It will have a two-track production strategy – producing English language content for global distribution, and Chinese content targeting only the local market.
Conqueror’s first roster of projects includes the women-led comedy series Legendary/Tencent maid killer, based on the popular website Tencent Comics; Comedy rated R time is passing, written by Jay Adams and features Asian and African American heroines; The comedy friends Mormon brothersWritten by Gary King.
China and the Asian market in general have an abundance of excellent and unique materials and talents to discover. “We will unite the famous Asian IP with a new class of young filmmakers to create next-generation entertainment for global markets,” Xu said.
Cheng & Sun said in a joint statement, “We aim to be an entertainment company that brings global stories from an Asian cultural perspective across film and television to the world. Vasco has an amazing taste for content and relationships with outstanding talent in the industry. This will be a new era for us.”
Xu began his career at Paramount Pictures and CBS Films before being hired as an assistant to Mary Barnett, Vice Chairman of Legendary’s Global Production Board. Then he moved on to a creative executive role working on films from them Pacific Rim: UprisingAnd the SkyscraperAnd the Pokemon: Detective PikachuAnd the Godzilla: King of Monsters And the Dune.
Adam Sandler also developed Accelerates Before it was sold to Netflix, the live-action movie of Sunrise mecha Gundam And the Constance Ferretti Awkwafina Championship. Xu also helped manage Legendary affairs related to China. The titles of his former independent production project Teahouse Pictures will be incorporated into the new project.
Cheng is the CEO of NWS Limited, the flagship company of New World Development Group in Hong Kong, owned by the Cheng family, which has business interests across infrastructure, services, property, hotels and retail.
Sun started his career at China Baoan Group and investment bank Guotai Junan Securities. Then he launched Grains Valley, which has invested in Chinese tech and culture startups including vaccine maker CanSino Biologics, bike-sharing company HelloBike, and Dongmantang comics, which was later acquired by Tencent.