Jackie Chan New Movies 2015: Alibaba Investing $16 Million in Jackie Chan's Future Movies

A crowdfunding unit of China's largest e-commerce company Alibaba has decided to invest $16 million in Jackie Chan's film company over the next three years.

Alibaba's Yule Bao confirmed making more investments on Chan's Yaolai film and TV company in the next three years to build a fan platform on Yulebao.

Patrick Liu Chunning, head of Alibaba's digital entertainment group, explained that they are aiming to establish fan platform, which they hope can translate as "entertainment treasure" for the company.

"Alibaba Yule Bao will cooperate with Jackie Chan to continue to make Chinese films," said Liu, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Yule Bao is a crowdfunding-like service that allows large fans to back movies and TV shows while also earning fixed rates of return.

It is actually a minority investor in "Dragon Blade," the $65-million historical fantasy action film produced and starred by Chan, with John Cusack and Adrien Brody as co-stars. It is expected to become one of the biggest movies in China.

Chan said he was good friends with Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma and the relationship would help in their collaboration.

"We both have our business. I focus on making good films and Alibaba Yule Bao has promoted fund-raising for new films. I hope we can both get success and promote Chinese films to the world together," said Chan, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

When Yule Bao was launched last year, it broke records for investment as hundreds of thousands of investors poured money into the fund. The same thing happened with the service's pitch for investment in "Dragon Blade." Within 2.5 days, investors put $4.8 million into the project.