In 2016, Legendary became a subsidiary of the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group, with American equity firm Apollo buying a minority stake in 2022.

[4] Thomas Tull founded Legendary Entertainment with co-founders, Jon Jashni, Larry Clark, William Fay and Scott Mednick[5][6][7] after raising $500 million from private equity firms.

[8] It was one of the first companies of its kind to pair major motion picture production with major Wall Street private equity and hedge fund investors, including ABRY Partners, AIG Direct Investments, Bank of America Capital Investors, Columbia Capital, Falcon Investment Advisors, and M/C Venture Partners.

[20] In March 2016, it was announced that Jon Jashni had decided, on the heels of the sale, to leave the company to establish Raintree Ventures, a media investment and advisory firm.

[22] He was replaced by the senior vice president of Wanda's cultural industry group, Jack Gao, as interim CEO.

[27] On August 13, 2018, following the box office failure of certain films including Blackhat, Seventh Son, Crimson Peak, and Skyscraper, the distribution deal between Legendary and Universal ended and a new agreement was reached to return to Warner Bros.[28] In December 2020, Variety and Deadline Hollywood reported that Legendary Entertainment, financiers, and talent with backend deals were not pleased with WarnerMedia's multi-release plans and non-transparent intentions.

[29][30] A few weeks later, Deadline reported that the film could keep its HBO Max release but only if Warner Bros. matches Netflix's $250 million bid.

[31] In January 2021, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that a legal battle was averted due to Legendary and WarnerMedia nearing an agreement to keep the film's simultaneous release.

[34] On January 31, 2022, a minority stake in Legendary was sold to Apollo Global Management, with Wanda still remaining the majority owner.

The partnership pact does not include Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire as Legendary would continue to remain in business for Warner Bros. Pictures.

Grode further stated that Legendary's board of directors would be evenly split between management and Apollo executives, although its creative team led by Mary Parent would remain unchanged, with the company attaining more flexibility to pursue mergers and acquisitions on a large scale, "...when we would have conversations around large scale M&A, we would have to deal with the foreign ownership issue, and that's now no longer an issue.

"[4] In November 2024, Legendary and Sony Pictures ended their distribution deal due to the poor box office performances of their films such as The Machine and The Book of Clarence.

[41] In 2014, Legendary acquired both Geek & Sundry, Inc., a YouTube channel and production company,[42] and the website Amy Poehler's Smart Girls.

[43] On June 10, 2016, LDN announced a subscription streaming service, Alpha, which will include programming from both Nerdist and Geek & Sundry.

Under an initial agreement with Chinese film distributor Huayi Brothers International, half of the company was to be owned by the shell corporation Paul Y.