CMC Capital Partners Takes Full Ownership of Oriental DreamWorks, Renames it Pearl Studio

Oriental DreamWorks — the animation studio founded in 2012 as a joint venture between DreamWorks Animation and CMC Capital Partners (formerly China Media Capital) — co-produced Kung Fu Panda 3 in 2016, and achieved great success with the film worldwide.

Last week, it was announced that CMC Capital Partners has taken full ownership of Oriental DreamWorks, making it a fully Chinese-owned family entertainment company with branches in New York and Los Angeles.

DreamWorks and Oriental DreamWorks

CMC has already rebranded Oriental DreamWorks with a new name, Pearl Studio, as well as a new logo of a pearl in a hand designed by Alan Chan. The new name and logo embody the definitions of “masterpieces” and “high-quality products” from Eastern and Western perspectives, according to CMC.

Frank Zhu (朱承华), CEO of Pearl Studio, sounds confident about the new venture in a recent interview with Mtime (link in Chinese):

The establishment of Pearl Studio is a milestone of the company’s globalization strategy. I firmly believe that with CMC’s support and cooperation, we will offer great entertainment experiences combining Chinese and Western culture, just like our name — ‘Pearl’.

Former and current logo

The first original animated film to be produced by Pearl Studio is Everest, which will be released in 2019. The film will take the audience on an adventure in the Himalayas, where a group of misfits encounter a Yeti called Everest and accompany him on a quest to unite with his family on the summit of the highest mountain on the earth, according to the Mtime interview.

Everest will be created in collaboration with DreamWorks (DreamWorks’ parent company, NBCUniversal, sold all of its stock in Oriental DreamWorks to CMC). The film will be distributed by Universal Pictures in overseas markets outside China.

Glen Keane with a draft of Over the Moon character Fei Fei

Pearl Studio is also creating an animated musical called Over the Moon in collaboration with Netfilx. Directed by Oscar-nominated director Glen Keane, Over the Moon will hit Chinese theaters and Netflix catalogues worldwide in 2020.

Cover image: Diyitui.com