China appears to be heading Japan's way as a Chinese conglomerate revealed on Monday a $US2.6 billion deal that would give the group majority ownership of AMC Entertainment Holdings, one of the biggest operators of cinema complexes in the United States.

The Associated Press (AP) identified the Chinese buyer as Dalian Wanda Group, 20-year-old plus firm that maintains entertainment, hospitality and other services offerings around China, with latest revenue reporting of more than $US16 billion in the past year.

Wanda, according to AP, has a current workforce of more than 50,000 currently deployed on its vast business interests within China.

While AMC operates a total of 346 theatres across the North American region, which employ more than 18,000 workers, Wanda has in its present stable 86 cinemas spread in China.

Attending the deal's signing ceremony, Wanda chairman Wang Jianlin said that his group's latest thrust was in line with its long-term agenda of transforming Dalian Wanda into a global company that mainly deals in entertainment, hotel and retail sectors.

"We want to be a big company, not just in China but in the world," Mr Wang declared.

Wanda's current business path harks back to the Japanese frenzied business expansion in the 1980s, which saw firms like Sony buying into America's entertainment industry, specifically that of Columbia Pictures.

Sony then was a leading global company that dictated the pace of consumer electronic products but has since shifted into unwelcome declines in the past years, its strings of losses capped by its last financial report that revealed billions in the red.

Wanda, however, is far from worried of stumbling into the same burst that a number of Japanese firms found themselves into while expanding in the United States.

Largely buoyed by the new-found prosperity of China, which last year dethroned Japan as the second biggest economy in the world, Chinese firms have been engaging in large-scale merger and acquisition agreements that so far this year have reached a total value of close to $US17 billion, basing on the data furnished by Dealogic.

Wanda's foray into America's corporate setting represent but a fraction of China's ongoing efforts to dip its fingers into the lucrative but equally volatile U.S. market, analysts said.

With fresh investment infusion into the company, AMC chief executive Gerry Lopez said that the cinema operator's upgrading efforts will surely get a boost, which includes the fitting of IMAX and 3D technologies on its numerous cinemas.

A number of AMC theatres have also been identified for possible structural upgrades and renovations, Mr Lopez added.

Prior to the deal, Mr Lopez admitted that AMC has absorbed losses on it past results but has since chalked up profitability, with claims that its owns about half of the 50 highest-grossing cinemas this year, thanks mostly the strings of recent movie hits like 'The Avengers' and 'Hunger Games'.

Mr Wang, however, is confident that Wanda's entry into AMC will lead to a change of fortune for the cinema operator, with the new firm jacking up its profits in the immediate periods ahead.

"We are confident that after the merger, AMC will turn positive," Mr Wang said.

"We support AMC becoming bigger, not only in the United States but in the global market," the Wanda big boss added.