Chinese Billionaire Is Ready for His Hollywood Close-Up

Reclining in a beige leather seat in his Gulfstream G550 private jet, Wang Jianlin barks an unlikely order as the aircraft descends into a remote pocket of Southwest China.

From Beijing to Hollywood to London and elsewhere in his expanding property, film and entertainment empire, Wang, the billionaire chairman of Beijing-based Dalian Wanda Group Co., is known as a stickler for formality. Not only does he favor dark business suits and ties, he empowers his receptionists to fine employees who fail to meet his dress standards. Today, though, China’s second-richest man is clad in khaki pants and sneakers. And as the jet prepares to land in China’s poorest province, Guizhou, he instructs his entourage to follow his example.