BEIJING — Hollywood studios, facing steep challenges in the North American movie market, are taking more interest in China.


The Walt Disney Company and Marvel Studios, a division of Disney’s Marvel Entertainment subsidiary, are producing “Iron Man 3” in China. News Corporation recently bought a stake in the Bona Film Group in Beijing. And an agreement with Chinese authorities will allow more American companies to distribute more movies and reap a greater share of the box office in China, the world’s fastest-growing economy.


But at least one billionaire businessman is betting that the American movie market is still the ticket to international success. And he is Chinese.


Wang Jianlin, a rags-to-riches tycoon, is taking over AMC Entertainment, North America’s second-largest movie theater chain behind Regal Entertainment. And he is promising to integrate it into a new, made in China, global brand called the Wanda Group.


Mr. Wang, 57, is regarded as one of the most successful Chinese real estate tycoons. His $17 billion empire includes huge commercial property developments, five-star hotels, tourist resorts, a film and television production company and Asia’s largest cinema network.


Now, by paying $2.6 billion to acquire AMC, the Wanda Group is extending its reach globally. The deal, announced Sunday, is still subject to the approval of United States regulators, though there are no hints it will be blocked. The purchase signifies a new era for Mr. Wang and in China’s development. Companies here are moving away from low-cost manufacturing and going abroad in search of natural resources and global consumer brands, part of an effort to upgrade the nation’s economy.


In an interview at his spacious headquarters in Beijing, Mr. Wang, the Wanda chairman, said he was pondering his next international destination: Europe.


“We’re already negotiating,” he said.


Wanda is a private company in a nation dominated by state-owned enterprises. But the AMC deal is closely aligned with the Chinese government’s priorities, which include encouraging Chinese companies to “go global,” pushing an overhaul of Chinese media and entertainment properties and placing greater emphasis on consumer spending.


Policy makers in Beijing also want to bolster China’s “soft power” capabilities to extend its cultural influence internationally, and the film industry is considered one of the most promising avenues for doing so.


But whether Wanda, a 24-year-old enterprise with little international experience, can make a success of such a big acquisition and create a global property and entertainment brand is debatable, analysts say.


“China has great entrepreneurs,” says Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA China, a Beijing-based investment advisory firm. “But the question is: How will they take these companies international? Are they going to be willing to learn and adapt?”


One of the biggest experiments in this area is being undertaken by Mr. Wang, a former army officer who has turned a tiny real estate venture into a national brand. Wanda, which started in Dalian, a northeastern city, and moved its headquarters to Wanda Plaza in Beijing, is a colossus with 183 million square feet of land under development or operation.


In 1988, Mr. Wang — who entered the army at 15, after middle school — says he left a job as a local government official in Dalian and borrowed $80,000 to start a business he now describes as a “sprinting elephant.”


Wang Yongping, founder of the China Commercial Real Estate Association, described the chairman of Wanda as usually a step ahead of other Chinese real estate barons.


“He always has a vision,” Mr. Wang, no relation, said. “When everybody was doing housing property, he jumped out to focus on commercial property. When everybody was chasing commercial property, he was eyeing culture and tourism — the industries that the government is stressing and cultivating.”