Wanda's purchase of the Legendary production house is no guarantee of a happy ending

At first glance, China's latest Hollywood deal - Wanda Group's purchase of Legendary Entertainment - is a hardware-software match made in box-office heaven.

The news that Wang Jianlin, one of China's richest men, is snapping up a Hollywood blockbuster production house is at once breathtaking and utterly predictable. It complements a movie-theater empire that includes thousands of screens on both sides of the Pacific, and meshes nicely with plans for the world's biggest studio.

Can a "Hollywood East" by the sea be accomplished through mergers and moneymen alone?

China's phenomenal growth in recent years reflects, at least in part, a willingness to think big, to tread where others dare not, and to copy, co-opt and take big chances.

The question remains, can a cultural efflorescence such as cinematic achievement be conjured up and brought to fruition like an industrial-strength infrastructure project?

President Xi Jinping has stated that China needs to do a better job of presenting itself to the world. Along comes Wang Jianlin, heeding the call, with a grand plan to make China a major film power by fiat and deep-pocketed investment. The problem is, what works for rockets and trains may not work for movies.

Creative success is quirky, subject to shifting tastes and capricious audiences.

Film is a fickle business. It is hard to think of a moneymaking realm where money is more at risk. Grounded in the nuances of human nature and human spirit, art is hard to harness and quantify. Cold cash cannot begin to pin the creative genie down.