Union complaint

A hotel workers union filed a complaint in September with the California Fair Political Practices Commission and the FEC accusing Wanda of using its financial influence to oppose a ballot measure sponsored by the Beverly Hilton.

"It's ironic in the sense that Wang Jianlin and Wanda wanted to be as high profile as possible, paying too much for AMC but getting a tremendous amount of publicity," said Rosen, but now the publicity "may come back to bite him in a sense because it makes him seem like a vacuum cleaner, just piling up assets, some of which are raising red flags in the US."

Potential regulatory action against Wanda could have a legal precedent in the US. The most prominent antitrust case in Hollywood had to do with a 1948 lawsuit against Paramount Pictures, in which it was decided that movie studios owning theaters - and therefore deciding which theaters could show their films - violated US antitrust laws. The landmark case was said to have started the unraveling of the old Hollywood studio system.

"They don't want someone owning all the channels and outlets of distribution and exportation," said Christopher Spicer, a film-finance lawyer with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. "To me, if [Wanda] did acquire a studio, it would come under scrutiny. That to me would be an issue, and if you read the letter from the Congress members that's what they're getting at."

Rosen said Wanda could continue its "Big Six" studio shopping by purchasing less than a controlling stake, but "it would be difficult to purchase something above 50 percent."

Spicer said he suspects Wanda definitely wants to acquire another studio, but he says fears that Wanda ownership would alter the Hollywood landscape may be misplaced.

"If that happens, I really don't know how - in terms of governmental anti-trust rules, with owing such a massive amount of theaters - that would work," Spicer said. But "from what it seems Legendary is still run exactly the same way it was six months ago. I haven't talked to anyone who's said 'Legendary is so different in its operations now.'"

Wang has made it no secret that he wants to beat Disney at its own game, saying that in the entertainment and tourism realm, Wanda and Disney were "archrivals." He said his ambition to best the media conglomerate is "not personal - it's where the interest of the company lies."

Commenting on Disney's theme park in Shanghai, Wang has said that the company never should have entered China.

Tigers and wolves

"Its financial prospects don't look so good to me," Wang said, adding that the company's strategy was "'One tiger cannot compete with a pack of wolves.' Shanghai has one Disney, but Wanda has 15 to 20 [theme parks] across China."

Rosen said that Disney's entrance into China "really rankles" Wang.

"It's one thing to compete in the US, but when they come onto your home territory, that's to him unacceptable. It's very ironic, because Wang's coming into the US and competing with these companies," he said.

A Disney spokesperson told CNN that Wang's comments were "not worthy of a response," adding that Disney had wanted to build a theme park in China since the 1990s, finally opening one on the Chinese mainland in June after spending more than $5.5 billion, five years of construction and a decade of planning.

Ganis said Wanda's overall strategy seems to parallel Disney's from the 1960s, when the company started covertly purchasing parcels of land in Florida to build its second theme park in the US, eventually building the "largest, best, and most well-run entertainment company the planet" has ever known.