Chollywood rising

[GeneChing]

Anyone seen Man From Macau II?

China’s Bona Film Doubles Profits in First Quarter


MAY 8, 2015 | 05:48AM PT
Patrick Frater
Asia Bureau Chief
Bona Film Group saw net profits reach $4.9 million in the first quarter, outpacing revenues, which doubled to $118 million. The performance was driven by the blockbuster success of “Man From Macau II,” which was the biggest hit in China over the key Chinese New Year period.

“Macau II” grossed RMB974 million. Other films distributed by Bona in the quarter included “The Grandmaster 3D” earning RMB62.9 million “Tales of Mystery,” which earned RMB7.6 million and “Emperor’s Holidays” for RMB114.4 million. Including holdovers of “The Taking of Tiger Mountain” Bona enjoyed gross theatrical revenue of RMB1.6 billion from January to end of March.

Films currently in production include “The Phantom of Shanghai” (previously “The Shadow of the Devil City”), “Sword Master,” “Secret Treasure.” Ang Lee’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” in which Bona is a partner alongside Studio 8 and TriStar, began shooting in April.

“We expect the Chinese film industry to generate strong box office returns in 2015, and believe that Bona’s solid slate of films and vertically integrated business model will make us well positioned to capitalize on the growth in the market,” said company founder Yu Dong in a statement. But with fewer big releases in the second quarter the company will only barely stay profitable. It forecasts non-GAAP net income for the second quarter of 2015 of US$0.5 million to US$1.0 million.

[GeneChing]

China box office has record July

By Kevin Ma

Tue, 11 August 2015, 10:30 AM (HKT)
Box Office News

China box office had a record month in July, according to figures released by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) 國家新聞出版廣電總局.

Total box office revenue for the month was RMB5.49 billion (US$884 million), making it the biggest monthly revenue of all time in China. According to local media, that number is even higher than the yearly box office revenues of 2002 to 2005 combined.

The success primarily came from the record-breaking runs of fantasy adventure Monster Hunt 捉妖記, animated fantasy Monkey King: Hero is Back 西遊記之大聖歸來 and superhero spoof Jianbing Man 煎餅俠.

Monster Hunt became the highest-grossing Chinese film of all time, and Monkey King became the highest grossing animated film of all time. The three films alone have already earned RMB3.36 billion (US$541 million) combined – representing more than 60% of the July box office.

During the unofficial "blackout month", domestic films had a market share of 95.6%. While foreign films imported under the revenue sharing model were blocked from release, foreign titles imported under flat-fee deals were able to open.

Despite the blackout period remaining in effect until late August, high-profile domestic releases in late July and early August such as Lady of the Dynasty 王朝的女人　楊貴妃 and To the Fore 破風 had weaker-than-expected openings.

Here's Monkey King: Hero is Back 西遊記之大聖歸來

Monster Hunt 捉妖記 & Jianbing Man 煎餅俠 may need their own threads here soon.

[GeneChing]

...the coverage has shifted more to TV. But now, I think I'll stick with it.

China Has Hollywood’s Attention. It Wants More
Alibaba and other Chinese players see more than stars in Tinseltown
Anousha Sakoui
September 4, 2015 — 9:46 AM PDT


An impossible mission partially funded by Alibaba. Photographer: Bo Bridges/Paramount Pictures

Alibaba’s Jack Ma, China’s second-richest person, made headlines last year when he visited Hollywood looking for deals. He met with studio executives such as Sony Pictures’ Michael Lynton and sat courtside at a Los Angeles Lakers game with superagent Ari Emanuel and actor Jet Li. One memento of the trip surfaced this summer in the form of the Paramount Pictures hit Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation. Alibaba Pictures Group invested in the feature, which generated $479 million in global box office through Aug. 30, and got the rights to sell merchandise and tickets to its 367 million customers in China when the film opens there on Sept. 8.

The deal with Viacom’s Paramount is one of more than a half-dozen in the past year between U.S. studios and Chinese companies that are quickly putting down roots in Hollywood. Alibaba, Dalian Wanda Group, Huayi Brothers Media, and others want to funnel films through their media outlets at home, as well as deepen their understanding of the lucrative business. “China is trying to learn why Hollywood is so successful,” says Stanley Rosen, a University of Southern California political science professor who studies the relationship between the mainland and the U.S. film industry. China, he says, wants to master the business “from the bottom up.”



Hollywood is happy to help. It needs the cash plus access to theaters in China, where the government limits the number of imported movies and controls how they are released. Such connections are crucial since China, projected to overtake the U.S. in box-office receipts by 2020, accounted for most of the growth in global movie ticket sales last year.

China’s would-be moguls hope to use stronger Hollywood ties as a way to make even more money off entertainment. When Mission: Impossible opens there, Alibaba will sell tickets online through its Taobao Movie unit, one of the country’s major ticketing platforms, which offers advance seat selection. People can pay using Alipay, Alibaba’s version of PayPal. The company also is planning to build China’s answer to Netflix and HBO, via a new service called Tmall Box Office.

Alibaba acquired a company called ChinaVision Media Group in 2014 to help it enter the business and renamed it Alibaba Pictures. The company sold HK$12.2 billion ($1.6 billion) in stock in June. Alibaba Pictures shouldered an undisclosed portion of the $150 million cost of making Mission: Impossible and said it’s looking for more ways to invest in Hollywood. (Paramount, which declined to comment for this story, said in June it hoped the deal was “the first of many collaborations” with Alibaba.)

State-backed China Movie Channel also invested in the spy flick, saying it would promote the film and sell tickets online. In a first for U.S. audiences, the names of both Chinese companies were displayed in the opening credits of the movie, following the century-old practice of studios like Paramount.

Last year, China’s theaters brought in $4.8b

People close to Alibaba say Ma’s strategy is to invest in specific films, rather than in studios. But real estate mogul Wang Jianlin, China’s richest man, is making bigger bets on infrastructure. Wang’s Dalian Wanda Group operates the world’s largest chain of movie theaters and is building the planet’s biggest studio theme park, Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis, on the coast of Shandong province. Wanda controls the No. 2 U.S. theater chain, AMC Entertainment Holdings, and last year bought land in Beverly Hills, where it plans to erect a $1.2 billion complex it calls its “first important step into Hollywood.”

Wanda, which footed the entire production cost of Southpaw, the summer release from Weinstein Co., also donated $20 million to a museum being built in Los Angeles by the motion picture academy that awards the Oscars; its film history gallery will be named after Wanda. Wang, who’s talked of buying stakes in studios Lionsgate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, wants to control 20 percent of the global film market by 2020.

Over the past year, U.S. studios “are going to these big companies with single pictures and saying, ‘Would you like to invest?’ ” says Robert Cain, a partner at Pacific Bridge Pictures, a film producer and consultant. “They’re investing because the opportunity is now being presented, and that’s only a recent phenomenon.”

Huayi Brothers Media, a Beijing-based moviemaker and distributor, raised about $560 million in August from investors including Ma’s venture capital outfit and Tencent Holdings, as well as Shanghai-based Fosun International, which has put $200 million into the Studio 8 production company on Sony’s Hollywood lot. Chinese private equity firm Hony Capital is among the backers of STX Entertainment, run by Robert Simonds, producer of films such as The Pink Panther and The Wedding Singer.

“China is trying to learn why Hollywood is so successful”—Stanley Rosen, University of Southern California

Even the Chinese government is getting in on the action. Besides Mission: Impossible, state-run China Movie Channel, the country’s No. 3 TV network, invested in Paramount’s Terminator: Genisys. China Film Group, the government-run distributor of all foreign movies, took about a 10 percent stake in Universal Pictures’ car-heist thriller Furious 7, which cost $190 million to make and grossed $1.5 billion globally—a quarter of that within China. There are risks, of course. China Film also invested in Sony’s Adam Sandler box office disappointment Pixels.

Cain says China’s government is able to use its control over its lucrative home market to influence U.S. studios and exert soft power—the kind of cultural influence that’s made Hollywood a global ambassador for America. China Film invested in The Great Wall, a thriller starring Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe about an elite force making a last stand for humanity on China’s snaking barrier. It’s targeted for a November 2016 release by Universal. Says Cain: “On a broad scale, China is steadily gaining more and more influence in Hollywood, and you won’t see a Chinese villain probably ever again in a Hollywood movie.”

—With Lulu Chen and Haixing Jin

The bottom line: More than a half-dozen Chinese companies have struck deals with Hollywood in the past year.

[GeneChing]

...from a different perspective.

Chinese pour big bucks into blockbusters
Would-be movie moguls are investing in Hollywood in a bid to grow the industry at home

PUBLISHED: 4:16 AM, SEPTEMBER 7, 2015
LOS ANGELES — Alibaba’s Jack Ma, China’s second-richest person, made headlines last year when he visited Hollywood looking for deals. He met with studio executives such as Sony Pictures’ Michael Lynton and sat courtside at a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game with super agent Ari Emanuel and actor Jet Li.

One memento of the trip surfaced this summer in the form of the Paramount Pictures hit Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation. Alibaba Pictures Group invested in the feature film, which generated US$479 million (S$682.10 million) in global box office through Aug 30, and got the rights to sell merchandise and tickets to its 367 million customers in China when the film opens there this week.

The deal with Viacom’s Paramount is one of more than half a dozen in the past year between American studios and Chinese companies that are quickly putting down roots in Hollywood. Alibaba, Dalian Wanda Group, Huayi Brothers Media, and others want to funnel films through their media outlets at home, as well as deepen their understanding of the lucrative business.

“China is trying to learn why Hollywood is so successful,” says Mr Stanley Rosen, a University of Southern California political science professor who studies the relationship between the mainland and the US film industry. China, he says, wants to master the business “from the bottom up.”

Hollywood is happy to help. It needs the cash and access to theatres in China, where the government limits the number of imported movies and controls how they are released. Such connections are crucial since China, projected to overtake the US in box-office receipts by 2020, accounted for most of the growth in global movie ticket sales last year.

China’s would-be moguls hope to use stronger Hollywood ties as a way to make even more money off entertainment. When Mission: Impossible opens there, Alibaba will sell tickets online through its Taobao Movie unit, one of the country’s major ticketing platforms. People can pay using Alipay, Alibaba’s version of PayPal. The company also plans to build China’s answer to Netflix and HBO, via a new service called Tmall Box Office.

Alibaba acquired a company called ChinaVision Media Group in 2014 to help it enter the business and renamed it Alibaba Pictures. The company sold US$1.6 billion in stock in June. Alibaba Pictures shouldered an undisclosed portion of the US$150 million cost of Mission: Impossible and said it’s seeking more ways to invest in Hollywood.

State-backed China Movie Channel also invested in the spy flick, saying it would promote the film and sell tickets online. In a first for US audiences, the names of both Chinese companies were displayed in the opening credits, following the century-old practice of studios such as Paramount.

In the past year, US studios “are going to these big companies with single pictures and saying, ‘Would you like to invest?’ ” says Mr Robert Cain, a film producer, consultant and Pacific Bridge Pictures partner. “They’re investing because the opportunity is now being presented, and that’s only a recent phenomenon.” BLOOMBERG

[GeneChing]

Another international film co-op with China.

China's Huace Group signs $300-million film financing deal with Arclight Films

Chinese entertainment conglomerate Huace Group is partnering with Australia's Arclight Films to co-finance a $300-million slate of movies.

Arclight Films, an international sales company (unaffiliated with the L.A.-based ArcLight Cinemas theater chain), said it had formed a joint venture with Huace to produce a dozen action and science fiction movies over three years.

The movies will be English-language co-productions featuring American, Australian and Chinese actors. Budgeted at $20 million to $60 million, the movies will target international as well as Chinese audiences, said Gary Hamilton, chairman of Arclight Films.

"We are exporting Chinese culture and Chinese actors and maybe changing some of the stereotypes where Chinese actors are not necessarily cast in the lead roles," Hamilton said. "We're trying to cross a bridge between both markets."

The deal is the latest tie-up between Chinese and Western film companies eager to expand into the world's second-largest film market. Earlier this week Warner Bros. signed a joint-venture deal with China Media Capital to co-produce a slate of Chinese-language films. Chinese digital studio Original Force, backed by Tencent Holdings, last month launched a new animation studio in Culver City run by former DreamWorks Animation executives.

Huace and Arclight already have three films in the works, an action thriller called "Lights Out"; "Safecracker," a crime film directed by Gregor Jordan; and an unidentified movie being developed with Thunder Road.

Arclight, which also owns the Darclight and Easternlight film labels, was established in 2002. The company has sold over 300 movies, including the Oscar-winning "Crash"; "Lord of War," starring Nicolas Cage, Jared Leto and Ethan Hawke; and "Forbidden Kingdom," starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The company's films also include worldwide horror hits "Wolf Creek" and "Bait 3D."

Arclight is based in Sydney, Australia, and also has offices in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing and Toronto. Huace, which was launched in 2005, produces and distributes movies and TV shows in China.

[GeneChing]

I thought this was interesting because the bulk of the Chinese film market represented here is NOT stuff that we would usually discuss on this forum.

Busan: Chinese Producers Share Secrets of Their Blockbuster Success


Sasha Don/Variety
October 6, 2015 | 03:24AM PT
Naman Ramachandran

Producers of some of the biggest Chinese blockbusters of recent years revealed the secrets of their success. They were speaking on Tuesday at an event within the Busan Film Festival’s Asian Film Market.

For Du Yang (“My Old Classmate,” “Police Story 2013”) the young demographic is her main target, so finding out what they like is key. “I am interested in economy and social issues because everything that is happening there is relevant to cinema,” she said. She cited the example of her 2009 production “Sophie’s Revenge” a rom-com released in the Chinese market when the genre was not in vogue. She took a gamble on the fact that global economics were in turmoil and the frustrated audience needed light relief. She was rewarded with 20 million admissions.

Apple is the company that Jiao Aimin (“Somewhere Only We Know,” “The Chef, The Actor, The Scoundrel”) holds up as an example of how to find future direction. Future proofing as much as possible is what he tries to do. “It is important to understand the psychological changes in the audience. We also have to create new demands and trends,” he says.

Jacky Y.H. Liu specializes in China-Korea co-productions and according to him, adapting content to suit local tastes is a recipe for success. He gave Korean film “Miss Granny,” that was remade in China as an example.

Veteran independent producer, Fang Li (“Ever Since We Loved”, “Double Xposure”) said “compared to other companies, I don’t make films that try to be hits. Art comes first. I make them for viewers. Impress viewers and make them emotional. Emotion is the secret for success. Commercial success will naturally follow.”

In his keynote presentation Jiao Aimin talked up the “crazy” explosion of the Chinese market and compared it to the U.S. In 2010 China had 526 releases on 6,200 screens, with 250 million admissions generating $1.4 billion at the box office. At that time, with box office receipts of $10.5 billion, the North American industry was seven times bigger than China’s.

In figures up to September 2015, Jiao said that 618 films have been released so far this year, generating 870 million admissions worth more than $4 billion. There are now over 26,000 screens in operation. At $7.8 billion so far, North America is now only 1.6 times bigger than China. Jiao predicted that China will take overtake by 2017.

Amidst the China flag waving, Du Yang struck a note of concern when she said that only 30% of Chinese films produced get a theatrical release.

Wonder what happens to that other 70%

[GeneChing]

No ghosts? Wait, what about A Chinese Ghost Story? Maybe it's just no Western ghosts. This gives a whole new perspective to gweilo.

China’s No-Ghost Protocol Is Hampering Movie Flops
Crimson Peak is hoping to make up for its poor U.S. box office overseas—but it has to get around the country’s censorship of supernatural elements.



DAVID SIMS OCT 22, 2015 CULTURE
“Ghosts are real, that much I know,” is the first line spoken in Guillermo del Toro’s swooning Gothic thriller Crimson Peak, which opened to solid reviews but a tepid box office last weekend. In today’s global film economy, sub-par earnings in America don’t necessarily doom a film: Del Toro’s last effort, Pacific Rim, made up for its mediocre domestic performance by being a big hit overseas, especially in China. Producers are hoping the same will happen for Crimson Peak, but there’s one big problem. China’s Film Bureau doesn’t allow movies with ghosts in them, and certainly not movies that assert they’re “real.”

The intricacies of getting a film approved by the China Film Bureau, an executive branch of the country’s Communist government, are largely unknown to Western audiences. Sometimes it can take months or years to secure a release; many major films have run afoul of unforeseen diplomatic pressures. In 2008, The Dark Knight’s planned rollout in China was cancelled because of “cultural sensitivities” (likely to do with scenes set in Hong Kong involving a money-laundering character), which significantly hampered the film’s worldwide box-office take. But Crimson Peak’s problem is an even bigger one. The Film Bureau objects to films with distinctly spiritual content, because they “promote cults or superstition” in violation of the Communist Party’s secular principles—a major problem for a movie chock-full of ghosts.

There are, apparently, ways around the “no ghosts!” rule. One easy way is to explain that the people seeing visions of the dead were crazy, perhaps, or on drugs. The second Pirates of the Caribbean film, Dead Man’s Chest, was banned in China because it had spirits swarming around, but Disney accordingly made cuts to the Chinese version of the series’ third film, At World’s End, to make it acceptable. Crimson Peak, though, is set in a haunted house literally teeming with ghosts—ghost babies, ghost brides, old lady ghosts, even main-character ghosts. The film can’t simply shake that off as a bad dream, and so, even though the film has been hyped by two of China’s most popular film websites (according to The Hollywood Reporter), it may never get a legitimate release there.

This wouldn’t have been a problem even 10 years ago, when even the most successful Chinese releases only earned tens of millions of dollars—not much by Hollywood standards. But as the China Film Bureau started allowing more U.S. productions into theaters, more movie theaters were built around the country, and its annual box-office numbers exploded. In 2007, the highest grossing film in China was Transformers, which made $37 million. This year, it was Furious 7, which took $390 million. Del Toro’s Pacific Rim made $101 million in the United States in 2013 on a $190 million budget. But it took $111 million in China, nudging it into profitable territory. That kind of haul can rescue a film, even if it’s seen as a box-office failure in its home country.

Part of the reason for Pacific Rim’s success overseas was its inclusion of Chinese characters. Some blockbusters have started filming scenes that are inserted only in Chinese cuts, like Iron Man 3, which had a whole subplot that American audiences will never see. Reaction to the China-specific scenes, which were apparently inserted rather awkwardly, were reportedly mixed. But it helped carry the Marvel movie to an impressive $121 million take in the country. Other recent films, like Gravity, 2012, and Transformers: Age of Extinction, have benefited from including scenes that depict cooperation with Chinese characters.

Within a few years, the Chinese film market may overtake America as the world’s biggest, and such story tweaks might become more and more noticeable. It’s also possible the China Film Bureau will continue to relax its standards to keep up with changing trends and stay ahead of piracy within its borders. A more concerning trend to watch for will be whether Hollywood becomes reluctant to produce big-budget films that won’t sell overseas. As Birth Movies Death’s Devin Faraci points out, Marvel has Doctor Strange on its docket in 2016, which will be full of ghosts—maybe in a few years, that’ll be a harder sell for a big studio. Then again, they can always splice in a scene explaining that it was all a dream.

[Jimbo]

It's ridiculous that American movies cannot portray any Chinese character as a 'bad guy' for fear of upsetting the Chinese, yet the Chinese filmmakers are free to demonize characters of any nationality that they want to in their movies. China is using the almighty $$ to dictate what filmmakers in the rest of the world can and can't show in their movies anymore. And now I suppose filmmakers won't be making many more paranormal-themed movies for fear of losing their beloved Chinese market.

That said, I've been mixed about Guillermo del Toro's works. I've never found his horror movies to be the least bit creepy at all. Too much reliance on CGI and the like, and IMO the stories are so-so.

[GeneChing]

Most movie merch is 'Made in China' anyway...

Hollywood Execs Flock to Mtime's China Merchandising Expo (Exclusive)



From left: Mtime CEO, Kelvin Hou: DreamWorks Animation CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg; Raman Hui; Alessandro Carloni, director of "Kung Fu Panda 3"; Zeng Maojun, president of Wanda Theater Group
Mtime

by Patrick Brzeski 12/14/2015 1:35am PST

DreamWorks' Jeffery Katzenberg pitches 'Kung Fu Panda 3' and Disney's Andy Bird touts 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' to some 800 cinema-chain managers at an event devoted to China's surging movie merchandising sector.

The rapid emergence of movie merchandising in China — what many are calling the next great boom sector of the country's entertainment industry — was on full display in Sanya over the weekend, as DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffery Katzenberg and executives from Disney and Legendary Pictures flocked to the southern Chinese resort town to pitch their latest pictures and related consumer goods directly to Chinese movie theater owners.

The occasion was the second edition of MCon, an annual film-industry convention hosted by digital media group Mtime, the company behind one of China's leading movie websites and mobile ticketing platforms. Founded by former Microsoft executive Kelvin Hou, Mtime has been described as Fandango, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Entertainment Tonight all rolled into one.

As host of the two-day event, Mtime booked a sprawling Shangri-La luxury resort and flew in over 800 Chinese theater managers — collectively controlling a majority of the country's 31,000 movie screens — along with a roster of Hollywood power players, including Katzenberg, Walt Disney's international president Andy Bird, Legendary Pictures vp Jamie Kampel, and execs from Sony Pictures Entertainment, Mattel and the Motion Picture Association.

Over the past year, Mtime has made a bold bet that China's intellectual-property protection and consumer market have both reached the crucial stage where the country's moviegoing masses are ready to open their wallets for high-quality, licensed goods associated with their favorite film franchises.

In 2014, global retail sales of licensed merchandise hit $241.5 billion, with 44 percent of those sales coming from the character and entertainment category. But North America accounted for nearly 60 percent of the worldwide total, with Asia contributing under 10 percent — this, despite the tremendous gains of the Chinese box office, which is expected to surpass North America as the world's largest film market over the next three years.

"China has enjoyed explosive box office growth, but 80 to 90 percent of film revenue still comes from ticket sales," said William Feng, the Motion Picture Association's general manager in China, during opening remarks at MCom. "The industry is in its infancy, but I believe merchandise will be a key focus of China's movie market over the next several years."

Over the past 11 months, Mtime has launched 55 brick-and-mortar stores in cinemas in 10 cities, laying the groundwork for a cross-country online-to-offline merchandise service. On Thursday, the company released the final piece, Mtime PRO, a B-to-B mobile app that facilitates one-stop merchandising sales between Hollywood studios and Chinese movie theaters — made possible by an industrial chain of design, production, logistics and customer-service systems developed by Mtime over the past two and a half years. Mtime also has quietly signed a range of merchandise deals with all of the big six Hollywood studios. Mtime declined to share terms or details of its agreements, but it said some are ongoing and others are on a per-picture basis.

During MCon, the participating studios each gave an in-depth presentation on their latest tentpoles — including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Kung Fu Panda 3 and World of Warcraft — along with an introduction to the myriad consumer products they have developed with Mtime for each title, which the cinema chain reps could then buy directly from the new Mtime PRO app.

Disney placed life-size stormtrooper figures throughout the venue, attracting constant crowds of selfie-snapping theater-chain staff. Katzenberg and Kung Fu Panda 3 director Alessandro Carloni made a surprise appearance at a banquet lunch to personally serve Chinese steamed buns, the preferred snack of Po, star of the Kung Fu Panda franchise.


DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg serving dumplings to Chinese guests at Mcom.

Opening Jan. 29 in North America and China, Kung Fu Panda 3 will be the first release from Oriental DreamWorks, the joint venture established by DreamWorks Animation, Shanghai Media Group and China Media Capital.

Introducing the film to a room full of several hundred theater-chain heads during the DreamWorks session, Katzenberg stressed the authentically Chinese elements of both the story and production process (Disney's Star Wars talks were closed to the press).

"For me personally, it is exciting to see how this movie is a big part of the journey of DreamWorks itself," Katzenberg said, adding: "The first film was made in Los Angeles and dubbed from English into Chinese. We were thrilled that it was embraced by the Chinese people ... but the third film is a truly Chinese movie on every level."

Kung Fu Panda 3 will be released in both English and Mandarin-language versions. Katzenberg said a Chinese team was consulted at each stage of the pic's production, ensuring that the Mandarin-language script's humor and slang were precisely calibrated to local sensibilities.

"This is the most technologically advanced film in the history of our studio," he said. "Never before has a film been animated in two languages," he added, explaining that not just the character's mouths but also their body language and facial expressions were created separately for the English and Mandarin-language versions of the film.

Oriental DreamWorks vp Kitty Xu later took the stage, saying, "We are confident that Kung Fu Panda 3 will surpass Monster Hunt to become the highest-grossing Chinese film ever."

She then launched into a detailed overview of the exhaustive range of Chinese products that Oriental DreamWorks has developed for Kung Fu Panda 3's rollout, spanning toys, house wears, footwear, jewelry, apparel, electronics and much more.

As is customary at industry conventions nowadays, at least a third of the assembled guests were looking down and thumbing smartphones. This time, however, many may have been placing merchandise orders on Mtime PRO.

[GeneChing]

Wanda now owns Legendary and AMC. Fascinating.

Tue Jan 12, 2016 11:22am EST Related: ENTERTAINMENT, DEALS, CHINA
Wanda goes to Hollywood: China tycoon's firm buys film studio Legendary for $3.5 billion
BEIJING | BY SHU ZHANG AND MATTHEW MILLER

Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has bought U.S. film studio Legendary Entertainment for about $3.5 billion, turning its chairman into a Hollywood movie mogul as China's richest man steps up a drive to diversify his business empire overseas.

At a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday, Wanda Chairman Wang Jianlin said he plans to package Legendary, behind hits like "Jurassic World", with existing movie production assets in China and sell shares in the merged operation in an initial public offering (IPO).

The move makes Wanda the first Chinese firm to own a major Hollywood studio - a sign of the country's growing power in the global movie world, industry watchers said.

The executive gave no further details on the IPO plan, but said was acquiring Legendary Entertainment for both intellectual property reasons and the studio's movies. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month a deal to secure a majority stake in Legendary had been agreed.

"Wanda Cinema already has made tremendous development in China, but it isn't enough," said Wang, whose personal wealth is estimated by Forbes magazine to be about $27 billion. "Movies are global, and our company certainly wants to add our voice to the world film market."

The deal is Wanda's biggest overseas acquisition ever and comes as Wang accelerates a drive to diversify a giant with 2015 revenue of $44 billion away from its core, but slowing domestic property operations. With deals to buy into everything from financial services to Spanish soccer club Atletico Madrid, Wanda said on Monday revenue rose 19 percent last year.

Under the deal announced on Tuesday, Wanda said it will buy an unspecified majority stake in Legendary. As part of the transaction, Legendary's founder and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Tull will continue to head up the movie maker.

Founded in Dalian, a city on China's northeast coast, and now based in Beijing, Wanda is already the world's biggest movie theater operator, having bought AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc, North America's second-largest cinema chain, for $2.6 billion in 2012. It also owns Australian movie theater company Hoyt's Group, and Wanda Cinema Line Corp, the group's domestically listed firm, is the biggest theater operator in China.

"The deal reflects the emergence of China as the next generation of Hollywood investors and represents a shift from Japan," said Dan Clivner, co-managing partner and media M&A attorney at Sidley Austin in Los Angeles.

Wang said that the Legendary's intellectual property - with prospects for movie tie-in promotions - would add value to its motion picture and television production business. That would lead to greater opportunities for joint production, he said, while bolstering its tourism and cultural businesses also.

China's booming movie industry, fueled by the country's growing urban middle class, saw box office revenue increase 49 percent last year and exceeded 40 billion yuan ($6.1 billion) for the first time, according to data from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

In 2013, Wang, flanked by Hollywood A-listers like Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman, broke ground on a 50 billion yuan "motion-picture city" project in the eastern city of Qingdao, demonstrating his ambition to build China's own version of Hollywood.

Attending Tuesday's Beijing news conference, Legendary's Tull told reporters that he would continue to run daily operations, and that Wang had been "insistent we run operations and continue to run things the way we always have."

Founded in 2000, Legendary has made hits such as "The Dark Knight" and "Man of Steel", as well as "The Hangover" film franchise.

Legendary generally provides half the financing for movies whose budgets can run up to $200 million or more. It also has an agreement with China Film Co, the largest and most influential film company in China, to co-produce movies.

Both Wang and Tull dismissed concerns that Wanda's investment would lead to censorship or alter the content of its motion pictures.

"I'm a businessman," said Wang. "I buy things to make money, so I don't really think about government priorities. My main consideration is commercial interest."

Tull said that Legendary had already built up a brand in China with its blockbusters and wasn't looking to change its content.

"Frankly, we make movies that we want to see and thankfully they work here in China."

(Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)


Wang Jianlin, chairman of Dalian Wanda Group, gestures as he speaks ahead of a signing ceremony with Spanish soccer champions Atletico Madrid in Beijing, January 21, 2015.
REUTERS/JASON LEE

[GeneChing]

China Artificially Inflating Box Office Figures, But Vows a Crackdown
Last year, China broke box office records... or did it?
Charles Liu, January 22, 2016 11:37am

The State Committee on Films and Broadcast Media (formerly known as SARFT) has announced a campaign to crack down on Chinese box office fraud. The plan will subject film distributors and cinemas to provincial and national inspections in order to verify their figures.

Film bureau head Zhang Hongsen said box office cheating twists the market and damages both the producers and cinemas, especially for producers since their profits rely heavily on the box office. Artificially inflated figures help attract larger audiences, act as leverage when courting investors for future projects and can even increase the stock prices of movie production companies.

Authorities have long since believed that inflated box office receipts are common in China, however suspicions were further raised upon review of the 2015 box office numbers. Over the course of last year, Chinese films took in 44 billion yuan ($6.7 billion), an astonishing 49 percent increase from the year before.

Guangzhou Daily reported last October that producers for the Chinese hit film, Lost in Hong Kong, held “phantom screenings” late at night in which no audience members were present as a way to increase the film’s box office. Reports also claim that Edko Film, producer of Monster Hunt, China’s highest grossing domestic film of all-time, scheduled screenings of the movie some 15 minutes apart in theaters it owned or had a stake in as a way to artificially inflate the movie’s earnings. This helped the film push its earning ahead of Hollywood blockbuster, Furious 7.

The Hollywood Reporter has alleged that Communist Party officials were responsible for artificially inflating the box office last month for the nationalist film, The Hundred Regiments Offensive, at the expense of Hollywood blockbuster Terminator: Genysis, which is said to have lost around $11 million as a result.

Perhaps most ****ing, an Enlight Pictures executive was reported by China Daily to have posted on Weibo that it was not to blame for box office tampering, because everyone was doing it. The post has since been deleted.

Source: China Daily, China Daily, China Daily, Weibo, The Epoch Times, The Guardian
Photos: The Telegraph

More on Monster Hunt, which opens in U.S. theaters today. I couldn't find a review on Lost in Hong Kong, but I think I posted one on Lost in Thailand here somewhere.

[GeneChing]

Good for Dolby. For years, one of my biggest complaints about China was that they had terrible sound systems. That was more with festivals and concerts as I don't recall ever seeing a movie in a theater there - at least not a normal one. I saw some films at Shaolin, but that was quite different. There was a great 360 degree theater there once, and then there was the rollercoaster simulator, plus I saw a few movies shown to the wushuguan kids shown on hung blankets in the training fields at night.

Dolby Plans 100 Theaters In China, Courtesy Of Wanda Cinemas
by Anita Busch
January 27, 2016 9:02am


Ed Jones/AFP/GettyImages



The exhibition arm of Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group, the Wanda Cinema Line, has opened the door for San Francisco-based Dolby Laboratories to establish their system into 100 theaters over the next five years with the first location scheduled to open this spring. The theaters will be equipped with both what the company calls Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos which combines both image and sound technologies. By doing this, Wanda becomes the first cinema chain in China to do so. For Dolby, it continues their goal of global expansion.

RelatedChina's Largest Theater Group Enters Movie Merchandising Market
In just over a year, the company already has commitments to install their equipment in about 200 theaters overseas. Most recently, it opened two theaters with the digital equipment installed in The Netherlands and another in Spain. There are plans to open six locations via Cineplexx in Austria. In the states, AMC (owned by Wanda) said it will add 50 more Dolby Cinemas (as they are known) by year’s end with a total of 100 by 2024.

“We are thrilled to become the first cinema chain to bring the Dolby Cinema premium experience to moviegoers in China,” said John Zeng, President, Wanda Cinema Line in making the announcement. “I believe that Dolby Cinema, with its award-winning sound and imaging technologies and inspired design, will provide Wanda Cinema patrons a moviegoing experience that is unlike any other in China.”

“Dolby’s collaboration with Wanda Cinema Line marks a significant step in delivering the next-generation cinema experience on a global scale,” said Kevin Yeaman, President and CEO, Dolby Laboratories.

[GeneChing]

China's Wanda Deal for Legendary Gets U.S. Regulatory Approval


Wanda chairman Wang Jianlin

by Patrick Brzeski 2/2/2016 2:58am PST

Last month, the Chinese conglomorate announced plans to acquire the U.S. co-producer of 'Godzilla' and 'Jurassic World' for $3.5 billion, which would be the largest Chinese buyout of a U.S. media company ever.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has given Chinese real estate and investment conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group the green light to go forward with its $3.5 billion acquisition of Thomas Tull's Legendary Entertainment.

The Chinese buyout of the U.S. film studio was announced by the two partners in January.

“It is quite a feat for an acquisition to be approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce in such a short time,” Wanda said in a statement on Tuesday. “This reflects the positive attitude that the U.S. government has towards Sino-U.S. cultural exchange."

The Legendary deal is Wanda's latest step toward its goal of becoming a global, vertically integrated film company. The Chinese conglomerate has been pushing to diversify from its core real estate business since August 2012, when it spent $2.6 billion to acquire AMC Entertainment, North America's second-largest cinema chain. Last year, Wanda paid more than $600 million for Hoyts, Australia’s second-largest multiplex group. Wanda also owns China's largest domestic exhibition circuit, Wanda Cinema Line, which has a market cap of $18.5 billion.

According to Wanda, once the Legendary deal goes through, it will be the highest-revenue-generating film company in the world (the Chinese giant is also rumored to be shopping for a pan-European movie theater network).

The Wanda-Legendary deal faces one final regulatory hurdle: approval by China's National Development and Reform Commission and the country's Ministry of Commerce. The agreement isn't expected to encounter any difficulty in receiving swift passage on the Chinese side, however, given the way the Chinese government has been supporting leading local businesses' efforts to go global.

Wanda's founder and chairman, Wang Jianlin, is one of China's wealthiest individuals, with a net worth estimated at $32.7 billion by Forbes.

The big budget, spectacle-heavy pictures Legendary specializes in have had a strong track record in China. Many of the titles the studio has co-produced — such as Godzilla, Inception, Jurassic World and Pacific Rim — have done particularly big business in the CGI-loving Chinese market, which is expected to surpass North America as the world's most valuable theatrical territory sometime next year.

At least this justifies our Pacific Rim coverage a little more.

[GeneChing]

China Box Office: Revenue Soars 47 Percent in Normally Quiet January


'Detective Chinatown'
YouTube screengrab

by Patrick Brzeski 2/3/2016 7:31pm PST

The market share for Hollywood movies, however, slipped to 29 percent for the first month of 2016.

While China's stock markets recently gave economists plenty of cause for concern, the country's movie box office showed no signs of slowing its historic expansion in the first month of 2016.

Box office revenue reached $583.4 million (3.839 billion yuan) in January, usually a relatively slow month for movie-going in the country. The haul represents a 47.2 percent increase over January 2015. The performance is roughly in line with the astonishing 48.7 percent full-year growth rate the Chinese theatrical market achieved in 2015 (the January growth figures were released by Beijing-based box office monitor, Ent Group).

The overall box office expansion means that Hollywood studios are making more money from China than ever, but their market share in the country has been on the wane — in 2015, Hollywood's share fell to 38.4 percent from 45.5 percent in 2014. China's regulators continue to employ selective scheduling to promote local fare. The Chinese film industry's output is becoming more diverse and professionally polished, too.

In January, that trend continued, with Hollywood titles representing approximately 29 percent, or $169.2 million, of the month's overall total (British movies took a little over 4 percent, thanks to Sherlock: The Abominable Bride's $24.4 million run).

The big Hollywood entry of the month was Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opened in China Jan. 9. Through Tuesday, Force Awakens had grossed $123 million, a little less than the $123.6 million earned to date by Detective Chinatown, a local action-comedy set in Thailand and produced by Wanda Media and Youku Tudou's Heyi Pictures. Force Awakens edged out Detective Chinatown as the highest-grossing movie of January, since the Chinese title opened on Dec. 31.

Other Western movies in the market for the first month of January were Vin Diesel's The Last Witch Hunter ($25.6 million), The Walk ($12.6 million), Solace ($5.3 million) and Alvin and the Chipmunks 4 ($5.7 million).

In February, Chinese films are expected to dominate more decisively, as local regulators institute a blackout period on foreign movie imports during the Chinese New Year holidays, spanning the first half of the month. Much anticipated Chinese titles — including Stephen Chow's Mermaid and From Vegas to Macau 2, starring Chow Yun-fat — are forecasted to make hay over the holidays.

Hollywood's big hope for February is Oriental DreamWork's Kung Fu Panda 3, which was allowed to open during the lucrative festive season thanks to its status as a co-production with China Film Group, and ODW's joint venture investment from China Media Capital and Shanghai Media Group. The threequel opened in China on Jan. 29, earning a strong $73.6 million through Tuesday after scoring the largest debut of all time in China for an animated film. Since it's an official Chinese co-production, regulators count KFP3's grosses on the Chinese side of the revenue share equation.

The growth of China's movie industry has been fueled by the steady emergence of a modern consumerist lifestyle across the country's 1.3 billion population, and the concomitant expansion of movie exhibition infrastructure. In 2014, 8,035 movie screens were installed in China — a construction rate of 22 screens per day.

At the end of 2015, China's screen count sat at 31,627, according to state sources. North America is estimated to have about 39,000 movie screens. If the current rate of growth holds up, China will surpass North America as the world's largest movie market in early 2017.

This is sooner than earlier predictions. If this happens, I'll have to expand my Chollywood column in Kung Fu Tai Chi again.

[GeneChing]

China Box Office Breaks World Record With $548M in One Week
4:07 AM PST 2/15/2016 by Patrick Brzeski


"The Monkey King 2"
Courtesy Filmko Pictures Co., Ltd

The seven-day haul is more than the Chinese box office generated for the entire year a decade ago.

China's movie box office has smashed the world's seven-day revenue record for a single territory, racking up an astonishing $548 million in ticket sales over the Chinese New Year's holiday period, plus Valentine's Day on Sunday.

That eclipses the record set in North America six weeks ago, when Star Wars: The Force Awakens lifted the territory to $529.6 million from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1.

The record one-week haul also is considerably more than the Chinese box office generated for the entire year just one decade ago. In 2006, China's total box office was approximately $327.5 million.

Hong Kong hitmaker Stephen Chow's latest comedy Mermaid helped fuel the historic total, grossing $275.1 million for the week, according to data from Beijing-based box office monitor Ent Group.

Wong Jing and Andrew Lau's From Vegas to Macau III, starring Chow Yun Fat, came in second, pulling in $119.6 million in seven days. Fantasy blockbuster sequel The Monkey King 2, starring Aaron Kwok and Gong Li, also raced past the $100 million mark, earning $116.2 million.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Mermaid
The Monkey King 2