A major Chinese film studio has struck a deal that will funnel $235 million into a slate of six tentpole 20th Century Fox Film Corp's movies including this summer's The Martian, as China's burgeoning entertainment industry deepens its courtship with Hollywood.

Tentpole movies are films that are expected to be very successful and therefore able to fund a range of related products or movies.

Bona Film Group Ltd, backed by billionaire Guo Guangchang, is one of China's largest producers and distributors of films. It agreed to invest the sum in partnership with TSG Entertainment Finance, which picked out the movies, Peng Li, a Bona investor relations executive, said from Beijing on Thursday.