Hollywood’s Latest Stars Hail From China
Big marketing efforts from Chinese partners give box-office edge to ‘Warcraft,’ other films
“Warcraft” is now the highest-grossing video game film of all time. Watch what happens when China is fully behind a Hollywood film. Photo: AP
Updated June 28, 2016 4:57 a.m. ET
BEIJING—It was hard to avoid “Warcraft” in China in recent weeks.
Bus stops in the country’s big cities and shelves in its grocery stores advertised the film based on the “Warcraft” videogame franchise. Warrior images popped up on popular ride-hailing apps and web browsers. A 6-meter-high “Doomhammer” weapon was erected in Beijing’s upscale Sanlitun shopping district.
The movie—produced by Legendary Entertainment, the Hollywood studio purchased by Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group Co. this year—has racked up more than $210 million from Chinese moviegoers so far. This is about five times its U.S. box-office tally, hammering home the audience numbers that a Hollywood movie can unlock in China with the help of the right Chinese partner.
Another Chinese-backed Hollywood movie, the Lionsgate comedy “Now You See Me 2,” took in about $43 million in its first weekend after opening Friday, compared with $22.4 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. earlier in June. The movie, backed by Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary Co., set an opening record for a Lionsgate title in China.
At a time of ramped-up competition in China’s movie sector, whose box office is set to overtake its U.S. counterpart next year, and with Chinese regulators limiting the number of foreign movies and blocking them from opening during peak periods, Hollywood studios are increasingly looking for an edge in China.
“Having Chinese partners on board brings the level of support to a Hollywood film that those without cannot compete with,” said Fu Yalong, research director of EntGroup, a film data company based in Beijing.
For “Warcraft,” almost everything about how it was marketed was a study in contrast with the usual obstacles Hollywood films face in China.
“Warcraft” was allowed to open at an opportune time, right after national college-entrance exams and during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival. That made it a prime holiday destination for a generation of videogamers—often with their dates.
Wanda helped make sure that anyone who wanted to see the movie could. Its theater chain, China’s biggest, offered nearly 80% of its scheduling slots to “Warcraft” on its opening day, and more than 70% later that weekend.
Other chains in which Wanda has interests also overwhelmingly showed “Warcraft” on its screens.
Lin Hao drove across Beijing to take a look at the Doomhammer, a legendary weapon used by orc-warrior leaders. For the 30-year-old engineer, “Warcraft” struck a nostalgic note, evoking days and nights of “fighting for the horde” in dorm rooms.
“I like special effects and reminiscing about the game,” said Mr. Lin, who took his wife, a nongamer, to watch the movie.
When “Warcraft” started flagging at the box office in its second weekend—dropping nearly 63% compared with its opening weekend—Wanda offered free or discounted movie tickets at its theaters. The campaign filled 1.71 million seats in its theaters over three days, Wanda said.
State regulators usually give Hollywood studios only about a month’s notice when they set a movie’s release date, leaving little time for marketing campaigns. In the case of “Warcraft,” Legendary said 26 well-established brands committed to creating commercial campaigns before the release date was set, from Ping An Insurance to dairy giant Mengniu.
A person familiar with the matter said such sponsors contributed about $200 million in brand support, a sizable lever for Legendary, whose typical marketing budget is about $6 million or $7 million a movie, the person said.
Hunan TV, which has co-financed a series of films with Lionsgate, has already promoted “Now You See Me 2” for months, running footage of the film’s lead characters during a satellite-television Lunar New Year extravaganza in February, one of the country’s most-watched shows.
With about 80% of movie tickets bought online in China, the backing of one of China’s internet giants represents something of a Holy Grail for Hollywood studios.
Alibaba Pictures Group Ltd., the film arm of Alibaba Group Holding, an investor in Paramount’s comic-book adaptation “Teenage Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows,” is pushing ads for the movie across Alibaba’s network, including ticketing platforms, the Taobao online store and the Weibo social-media platform.
Leveraging its reach, Alibaba is using big data from its ticketing platform and Taobao to send digital discount codes to a targeted audience and is working with more than 100 brands, in areas such as food delivery, popcorn and supermarkets, to use images from the “Turtles” in ads across China’s cities.
Tencent Holding Ltd., an investor in “Warcraft,” promoted it on its social-media platforms QQ and WeChat, each with hundreds of millions of active users, and ran ads with its exclusively streamed videos of National Basketball Association championship games to tens of millions.
Legendary has yet to decide whether there will be a sequel to “Warcraft,” but is now working on sequels to the sci-fi film “Pacific Rim,” which grossed more in China than stateside, and the monster film “Godzilla.” The company said it aims to develop these two sequels as China-U.S. co-productions.
For the Chinese partners, besides sharing in the box office, there are other advantages to the Hollywood ties.
“Working with the best foreign production companies will help us to bring our own Chinese content to the outside world in the future,” said Zhou Shixing, chief content officer of Hunan TV.
—Lilian Lin
Reply With Quote