Film and TV production company Legendary Entertainment has bought out the remaining 50% stake owned by Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group, signifying a coda to China’s once-lofty hopes of becoming a major player in Hollywood.

The Burbank studio self-financed the transaction with cash on its balance sheet and did not use outside funding, Legendary said Monday. The company said it still has “significant excess liquidity” to finance its current business and planned expansion efforts. Legendary did not disclose the amount it paid to acquire Wanda’s stake, though company chief executive Josh Grode said it was a “very attractive price.”

Now that the buyout is complete, Legendary will be solely owned by company management and funds managed by private equity firm Apollo Global Management, which took a minority stake in the “Dune” and “Godzilla x Kong” studio in 2022 with a $760-million investment that helped buy down Wanda’s interest.

Last year, Legendary also got a five-year, $800-million loan led by J.P. Morgan.

“It’s just an exciting moment for the company,” Grode told The Times in an interview.

With company management and Apollo now owning roughly equal amounts of Legendary and jointly controlling the board, “We’re now fully aligned to realize a lot of the value that we built in the business, and we can start to really explore strategic growth opportunities that may have been hampered a little bit by the international component of our shareholders,” Grode said.

Wanda acquired Legendary in 2016 in a $3.5-billion deal viewed at the time as an indication of the deepening ties between Hollywood and China. Wanda chairman Wang Jianlin said at the time of the acquisition that the company wanted to have a “position in the global industry” and had planned to build what it said was the “world’s largest film and television studio” in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao.

But the company later retreated from those plans and faced greater headwinds breaking into Hollywood as the Chinese government clamped down on overseas investments, particularly those in the media and entertainment space.

Grode said the decision to buy out Wanda now was a “combination of factors,” including Legendary’s “significant amount of excess liquidity in the business.” (Wanda did not have voting control of the company.)

“They were a major shareholder in the company that was looking to monetize different assets, and we were in a position to be able to monetize their investment in the business,” he said.

Founded in 2004, Legendary built a name for itself by investing in such films as “Batman Begins” and the “Hangover” movies. The company has had a successful string of hits recently with the “Dune” movies, as well as selling the Millie Bobby Brown-led “Enola Holmes” to Netflix.

Outfest, the struggling nonprofit that had hosted a prominent Los Angeles LGBTQ+ film festival, is facing a defamation lawsuit from its former executive director, Damien S. Navarro.

Navarro on Friday sued Outfest in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging he was retaliated against after he raised discrimination and ethics concerns to the group’s leadership.

In his lawsuit, Navarro said Outfest did not take his concerns seriously enough or conduct an adequate investigation. He said he was excluded from meetings and that board members allegedly spread misinformation about his employment status.

Additionally, he accused Outfest and current and former board members of wrongly blaming him for the group’s financial woes, which were detailed last year in a Los Angeles Times article. The nonprofit’s board voted last year not to renew Navarro’s contract.

“Instead of taking collective responsibility for Outfest’s financial predicament, the Board generally, and specific Board members, sought falsely to cast blame on Mr. Navarro,” according to Navarro’s lawsuit. “As Outfest was imploding, members of the Outfest Board threw Plaintiff under the bus and sought to make him a scape goat for their own malfeasance.”

Outfest in a statement called Navarro’s claims “baseless and malicious.”

“Unfortunately, during Mr. Navarro’s leadership, the Outfest Board decided that it was in the organization’s best interest to bring in a new executive director,” Outfest said in a statement. “We remain committed to this decision as the best course of action for the organization and look forward to resolving this matter in legal proceedings.”

The lawsuit comes as Outfest is dealing with a financial deficit that has left it with just one employee — its interim executive director, Christopher Racster. The nonprofit was in turmoil last year, telling donors it was in “serious financial jeopardy” and needed to raise $750,000. It laid off its staff, including employees who decided to form a union.

Outfest, which began as a festival launched by UCLA grad students, had grown to attract thousands of people each year with its flagship summer film festival, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2022.

The organization branched out into other areas over the years, launching additional events such as the OutFronts, highlighting LGBTQ+ TV series; its Legacy Awards, which honored leaders and allies in the industry; and Outfest Fusion, which features voices from LGBTQ+ people of color.

As The Times reported last year, multiple people close to Outfest’s leadership questioned Navarro’s actions as executive director, which they said contributed to the nonprofit’s problems.

In his lawsuit, Navarro said board members fell short of their individual fundraising commitments.

“The Board blamed Navarro while failing to meet even their undervalued commitments,” the statement from Navarro alleged. He added that directors failed to heed his warnings about the need to make tough decisions, including layoffs, and chose not to hold the Legacy Awards, a key fundraising event.

“The organization didn’t want to self-correct,” Navarro told The Times. “In fact, they just wanted to get me out.”

Board member Mike G. Rose disputed the claim, saying in an interview that the Legacy Awards weren’t held because there wasn’t enough money to front the costs.

“If you know you can’t pay the bill, you don’t hold the event,” he said.

Lucas Bailey, Outfest board co-president, said: “We’ve been trying to deal with the financial mismanagement that we were left with, and have been rebuilding.”