Huayi Brothers Media Corporation expects to earn up to US $1.6 billion from a series of upcoming movies, notably those starring Hollywood heavyweights Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves and Johnny Depp.

Pitt will star in the World War 2 action movie "Fury", in which he plays a tank commander. The movie will be released in the US and China this November

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Reeves is John Wick in the movie of the same name. He plays the role of a former hit man being hunted down by an old friend who took on a contact to kill him. The movie is due out later this year.

Depp stars in "Mortdecai", an action-comedy movie about a suave art dealer named Charlie Mortdecai who travels the globe in search of a stolen painting said to contain the code to a lost bank account hiding Nazi gold. The movie is due for release in February 2015.

The three new movies are among a number of films Huayi Brothers hopes will increase its presence in the international movie industry. Huayi Brothers wants productions involving high-profile Chinese directors and actors and foreign films to produce box-office winners in China, which continues to show a massive appetite for Hollywood blockbusters.

Foreign films co-produced with a Chinese partner are easier to market in China where the movie industry is strictly controlled by the government.

Huayi Brothers president Wang Zhonglei said it took Huayi 20 years to earn US $1.48 billion in China's box office. It expects to earn some US $1.6 billion from the movies starring Pitt, Reeves and Depp in the space of about a year.

Counting the foreign films, Huayi Brothers plans to be involved in the release of 32 films for the two years ending in 2015. Included in this total is the Jackie Chan medieval China epic, "Dragon Blade," which will be released at the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year in 2015.

Huayi Brothers' co-production of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" released in 2013 remains China's highest-grossing film with USD $200 million in ticket sales.

TagsBrad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, Johny Depp