TENCENT Holdings Ltd.’s main movie arm plans to spend at least 2 billion yuan (US$295 million) investing in Hollywood and Chinese films in the two years through 2017 to expand its presence in global entertainment production, sources familiar with the matter said.

    Tencent Pictures, which helped finance domestic smash “Warcraft” and the upcoming “Kong: Skull Island,” is investing 1 billion yuan this year and more than that in 2017 on a plethora of local and foreign movie projects, the sources said. That figure covers only movie financing and doesn’t include the company’s budget for intellectual property and content acquisition, the sources said.

    Shenzhen-based Tencent, China’s largest social media company, is laying the groundwork for a global entertainment empire. Founded just last year, its film-making arm is beginning to produce movies based on its trove of popular in-house content, adopting a franchise model akin to Walt Disney Co. and Marvel.

    The company announced in September it will bankroll 21 projects based on content including the “Tibet Code,” a fantasy series involving a hunt for ancient treasure. It’s beefing up its stable of mobile games by buying Clash of Clans developer Supercell Oy.

    Tencent owns dominant messaging services WeChat and QQ. (SD-Agencies)