Chollywood rising

[GeneChing]

The Chinese yuan may be worrying Wall Street, but Hollywood is betting on China.

Universal Finalizes $500M Slate Deal With China's Perfect World
6:26 AM PST 2/17/2016 by Patrick Brzeski


Jeff Shell, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group
Alex J. Berliner

The partnership that begins in 2016 will last five years or cover the co-financing of 50 films, making the Chinese video game and TV production company a major player in global entertainment.

Universal Pictures and Chinese multi-media company Perfect World Pictures have entered into multi-year financing agreement, which will cover films across the entire Universal slate.

The partnership will begin in 2016 and last five years or cover the co-financing of 50 films, making the Chinese video game and TV production company a major investor in one of Hollywood's hottest studios. Thanks to three hits (Jurassic World, Furious 7 and Minions) that made more than $1 billion at the box office, Universal had its most profitable year ever in 2015.

Financial terms were not disclosed, but sources close to the deal told The Hollywood Reporter in January that Perfect World would be making an investment of $500 million in Universal's slate, with the financing split evenly between debt and equity contributions. Perfect World is understood to be getting a 25 percent share of most, but not all, of the films released by Universal. Specific film titles included in the deal will be announced at a later date, the partners said in a statement Wednesday.

The agreement will not alter Legendary Entertainment's financing of select Universal titles, the two companies added. In another instance of China's growing market sway in Hollywood, Legendary was acquired by Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group for $3.5 billion in December.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Perfect World and appreciate the confidence it has in our film slates going forward after a record-breaking 2015,” said Jeff Shell, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group. “With Perfect World’s history of success in the Chinese market, we look forward to exploring other opportunities to work together.”

Although it's still a relatively new name to Hollywood, Perfect World has been active in film distribution, as well as Chinese TV production. For example, it was the Chinese co-distributor on Lionsgate's Divergent, Insurgent and Ender’s Game, as well as Universal's Rush. It also served as a producer-distributor on romantic comedy Sophie’s Revenge (2009), with Zhang Ziyi and Fan Bingbing. Perfect World Pictures currently has a market capitalization of $1.9 billion (12.5 billion Chinese yuan).

Michael Chi, chairman of Perfect World, added: “Building out our film business and expanding into international markets are two of the most important initiatives for Perfect World. Universal has had a stellar last few years, and with a slate that boasts many titles that we know will thrive in the marketplace, we are confident our partnership with them is a solid step in the right direction. Our partnership with Universal is not just about making movies together, but also about the opportunities that exist in the synergy across our multiple business lines to maximize strategic value for all involved.”

Perfect World was represented by Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. Universal Pictures was advised on the transaction by The Raine Group and represented by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.

[GeneChing]

...but still relevant here. Sorry the table format got all scrunched.

Chinese Hits Miss Out on the Global Box Office


“Goodbye Mr. Loser” (Courtesy of China Lion)

If he’d had the time after meeting American captains of industry in Seattle and Barack Obama at the White House, Chinese President Xi Jinping might have ducked out at the close of his United Nations appearance and into a New York movie theater to check on how China’s other soft power ambassadors—its movies, not its pandas—are playing to American audiences.

Struggling to get off the ground, as it turns out.

Though Hollywood studio films are making greater returns than ever at China’s box office—despite imports being limited to 34 each year—market forces pigeonhole screenings of Chinese-language films from the People’s Republic into a small but growing group of U.S. theaters that dedicate a few screens to serving an audience made up almost exclusively of diaspora Chinese and Chinese students studying abroad.

The number of Chinese Americans living in the U.S. was 3.9 million in 2014, according to The United States Census Bureau, up 4.23 percent from a year earlier and up 23 percent from 2009. Then there were roughly 300,000 students from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan studying in America in 2014, many of whom, at the graduate and post-graduate level, bring their spouses along with them.

A self-proclaimed movie fan whose opening remarks last month in Washington State twice nodded to Hollywood’s global influence—mentioning both Sleepless in Seattle and House of Cards—Xi didn’t go to see director Xu Zheng’s buddy comedy Lost in Hong Kong, which was released in the U.S. on September 25 in the midst of the Chinese leader’s state visit. In New York City, the film screened at the AMC Empire 25 in Times Square, the east coast flagship of a theater chain now owned by China’s richest man.

Lost in Hong Kong, distributed in the United States by Plano, Texas-based Well Go USA Entertainment, thus far has pulled in about $1.3 million in U.S. ticket sales at 34 screens nationwide and has cracked the top ten of the most commercially successful Chinese-language films to play in American cinemas [see Table I]. Yet its success is dwarfed by, for example, the tenth most-successful Hollywood film in China just this year: Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, which has raked in $137 million for its co-producers, Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, and the China Movie Channel, a unit of state-run broadcaster China Central Television.

TABLE I: MOVIEGOING IN THE U.S. AND CHINA IN 2014

SCREENS POPULATION BOX OFFICE % CHANGE
USA 39,956 319 million $10.3 billion -5.2
CHINA 23,592 1.3 billion $4.82 billion +36
Source: Artisan Gateway

For all the hype about boom times in China’s movie marketplace—the box office in the first half of this year soared nearly 50 percent over the first six months of 2014—China can’t seem to land a single hit in what is still the largest theatergoing movie market in the world: the U.S. of A.

Chinese films weren’t always so little seen in America. Think back to directors Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou. The first, an American from Taiwan, still holds the record as the top-grossing foreign-language film of all time. His Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon grossed $128 million in 2000, spawning a decade of lesser imitators, and dwarfing the record holder up to that point, the 1997 Italian film Life is Beautiful, which still holds second place today with only $58 million. The second highest-grossing Chinese language film of all time in the U.S. is Zhang’s Hero, which made $54 million in 2004, a few years after China entered the World Trade Organization and Hollywood set its sights on China in earnest [see Table II].

TABLE II: TEN HIGHEST-GROSSING CHINESE-LANGUAGE FILMS IN THE U.S.

FILM RELEASE DIRECTOR ORIGIN BOX OFFICE
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON 2000 Ang Lee Taiwan $128,000,000
HERO 2002 Zhang Yimou China $53,710,019
FEARLESS 2006 Ronny Yu China, Hong Kong $24,623,719
KUNG FU HUSTLE 2004 Stephen Chow Hong Kong $17,104,669
HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS 2004 Zhang Yimou China $11,041,228
FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE 1993 Chen Kaige China $5,216,888
LUST, CAUTION 2007 Ang Lee USA, China, Taiwan $4,602,512
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE 2001 Wong Kar Wai Hong Kong $2,734,044
RAISE THE RED LANTERN 1992 Zhang Yimou China $2,603,061
LOST IN HONG KONG 2015 Xu Zheng China $1,302,281
Source: Box Office Mojo

It’s not that today’s Chinese filmmakers aren’t getting lots of attention and winning prizes at international film festivals; or that they’re not making mainstream movies that blow up big at home; or that Chinese audiences don’t know what they want—they are and they do. Consider recent high praise for Jia Zhangke at Cannes and the New York Film Festival for Mountains May Depart and, before that, A Touch of Sin, and the glowing reviews for Zhang Yimou’s latest picture, Coming Home. On the commercial front, Goodbye, Mr. Loser, the comedy currently at the top of the box office in China, grossed $189 million within the first three weeks of opening domestically on September 30.

In the United States, Goodbye, Mr. Loser, the first film from directors Yan Fei and Peng Damo, sold out five of the 14 screens on its October 9 opening night at AMC’s west coast flagship in the Los Angeles suburb of Monterey Park, a Chinese enclave. It has since grossed $1.14 million in the U.S. and opened in limited release in the U.K. on October 23. The film is distributed outside China by China Lion, a Beijing- and Los Angeles-based company with four employees founded and majority owned by Jiang Yanming, founder of Technicolor Beijing, with investment from independent Chinese film companies Huayi Bros. and the Bona Film Group. China Lion’s U.K. release of Goodbye Mr. Loser is its first foray into Europe in three years and comes right on the heels of Xi Jinping’s state visit there.



It may be a while before mainstream U.S. moviegoers on the coasts (let alone middle America, or the average Briton) flock to see films in Chinese with English subtitles, even if Chinese studios increasingly approximate slick Hollywood production values and fast-paced storytelling.

“When non-Chinese see Chinese films, they want something they can’t easily see in their home countries. Not, say, a romantic comedy, of which there’s an ample supply in the American marketplace,” said Janet Yang, a Los Angeles-based veteran go-between in the rising Pacific Rim movie trade and a producer of the modern urban fish-out-of-water comedy Shanghai Calling, a bilingual film that Yang said was “marginalized” by the U.S. market. “When audiences can’t entirely relate to the characters, what’s the point?”

Much as most of the 1,200 features produced in Bollywood in India last year exist in a bubble of domestic isolation, reaching out to the world mostly to concentrated diaspora communities, the audience for Chinese movies seems destined for now to remain disproportionately small considering the size of the country’s population, its people’s rich storytelling history, and China’s officially stated global cultural and soft power ambitions.

Some Chinese-language films are less about the language and more about the action, as Well Go USA’s success with the Yip Man franchise starring Donnie Yen attests. Though the films had modest runs in U.S. theaters, they have proven to have staying power in the home entertainment arena, according to Jason Pfardrescher, senior vice president of theatrical and digital distribution for Well Go USA.

“Our focus is to bring over films that appeal to the Chinese community and also provide an opportunity to go wider and speak to the African-American community, the Hispanic community and the action junkies who love to consume action films,” Pfardrescher said.

And those fans increasingly are found in middle America, around college campuses with large numbers of Chinese students, said China Lion’s chief operating officer Robert Lundberg, who grew up in one such college town, where he now sends his mom to check on the local Chinese-language releases for him.

“Lansing is where Michigan State University is and it’s easily one of our top ten locations. There’s a sliver of a local first-language-Chinese speaking population, and then the bigger thing is a very curious and interested Western audience who are beginning to say ‘Hey! What’s going on? We should know more about China and this is a great way to figure it out,'” said Lundberg.

Still, Hollywood producer Yang, who grew up in New York as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, says the cultural divide in the realm of the movies is growing in China, not shrinking, meaning it may be some time before movies from the People’s Republic have legs overseas.

“The tastes of Chinese in third- or fourth-tier cities in China is even more different from that of the West,” Yang said. “So there’s an increasing divergence. American films will still play in China because they’re fresh, but there’s obviously something else the Chinese audience craves, something closer to home.”

By Jonathan Landreth|October 26th, 2015

I did start a thread on Goodbye Mr Loser.

[GeneChing]

China’s Film Industry: A Blockbuster In The Making
By Knowledge@Wharton on February 17, 2016 9:28 pm in Business

While stories about China’s economy centers on a slowdown, China’s passion for movies, at home and abroad, follows a much more optimistic plotline. Its growth has been phenomenal, outperforming China’s traditional industries, such as manufacturing. Many experts believe China is on track to have the largest film audience in the world –- and by one estimate as early as 2020.

“The entertainment industry is a sunrise industry in China, while the steel industry is a sunset industry. The growth potential for the entertainment industry is still huge, despite a high growth rate of 17% [per year] in the past five years,” says Z. John Zhang, Wharton marketing professor. Already, the media and entertainment industry is worth $180 billion in China, he adds, and the number is only expected to get larger.

“Many sectors of the Chinese entertainment industry are growing well into double digits on an annualized basis, despite the slowdown in the overall economy. China’s steel industry by contrast is operating at only 70% utilization, with roughly 400 million tons of excess capacity. Neither domestic nor international demand will fill that gap,” says Gordon Orr, senior advisor to McKinsey and Co. who is projecting that China’s film audience size will exceed that of the U.S. in four years.

Currently, China’s movie ticket sales is second only to the U.S. In 2015, box office revenue hit a record $6.8 billion, up 49% from the previous year, according to China’s regulator, State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. That’s up from $1.51 billion a mere five years ago. North America also saw a record in 2015, hitting an estimated $11 billion for the first time even though it grew at a much slower rate of 7% year-over-year, reported media measurement and research firm Rentrak.

Moreover, China is expected to see a movie cross the $500 million threshold domestically in 2016, according to a McKinsey report. Some Chinese movies have already come close: Monster Hunt grossed $380 million to date while Lost in Hong Kong garnered more than $250 million. The record for an American film, Avatar, was $760 million on U.S. screens.

It wasn’t always this way. From 1979 to the early 1990s, Chinese movies were mainly propaganda films approved by the Communist government, according to an October 2015 report by the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission. As a result, the film market dwindled, with attendance falling by 79% from 1982 to 1991. To revive its movie business, China brought in its first foreign film in 1994 — Warner Bros.’ The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. The Chinese began importing more American films and today allows an annual quota of 34 a year.

Catalysts for Box Office Growth

At four times the size of the U.S., China’s population makes it the golden goose of the film industry. “China’s audience will one day be bigger than the U.S.,” predicts Qiaowei Shen, Wharton marketing professor. Moreover, the average Chinese citizen goes to the movies less than once a year while the average American goes almost four times a year. “There’s huge potential [for growth] if the average Chinese person [just] goes to the movies two times a year, then box office receipts will increase by two times,” she notes.

“Many sectors of the Chinese entertainment industry are growing well into double digits on an annualized basis, despite the slowdown in the overall economy. –Gordon Orr

Movies also are underpenetrated in China. Extending movie runs to second-, third- and fourth-tier cities should further propel box office receipts. “Big cities are very mature already, says Shen. “Now those smaller cities are becoming very important. [Studios are increasingly] marketing in those small cities. A few years ago, they would concentrate in Shanghai and Beijing,” Shen adds. Now they bring the movie stars to do promotional appearances in more than 20 cities, not just in major urban centers.

The infrastructure for movie-going is also on the rise. Adding movie screens and building cinemas, especially in the smaller cities, will spur growth of the entertainment industry in China, adds Shen. When a new shopping mall is built in China, it’s usually anchored by a theater.

China is building at a rapid rate of 15 new movie screens daily in new and existing cinemas, up from more than three screens a day in 2012, according to the U.S. commission’s report. China currently has 31,627 screens while North America has approximately 39,000 screens, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Orr predicts that the addition of screens will lead to growth of more than 20% in China’s box office in 2016. Bloomberg reports that China is expected to have 53,000 screens by 2017.

Rising disposable incomes among the growing ranks of the Chinese middle class also boosts the entertainment industry. According to EY, the disposable income per person jumped nearly five-fold to $3,440 from 2000 to 2011. Orr further adds, “The close to 50% year-on-year growth in the Chinese movie box office in 2015, continuing in 2016, indicates how, if you provide a higher quality service, the Chinese middle class will buy more of the service.”

As such, Hollywood studios with an eye to global box office gold know they cannot ignore the Chinese market — and have devised ways to get around the annual quotas set by the government. “There is not a big movie studio in the world that is not thinking about how to crack the China market from the start of making its movies,” says Zhang.

China Eyes Hollywood

China is also eyeing Hollywood to bolster its entertainment holdings and forge creative collaborations. “Many Chinese entertainment companies have a lot of capital; they may feel short of opportunities to deploy this capital in China and see easier opportunities to do so internationally,” notes Orr.

But China looks beyond financial reasons in inking deals. “There’s a concerted effort in China to move into the global entertainment and media industry to build China’s soft power,” adds Zhang. The cultural sector is one of the pillars of China’s Five-Year Plan, meaning the government makes an effort to support Chinese investment in entertainment. “Aside from being good business, it is a way to protect China’s influence in the world.”

“There’s a concerted effort in China to move into the global entertainment and media industry to build China’s soft power.” –Z. John Zhang

Recently, the Dalian Wanda Group, a Chinese conglomerate led by China’s richest man Wang Jianlan, paid $3.5 billion for Legendary Entertainment, a major Hollywood studio responsible for the Batman and Jurassic World franchises. It is the first Chinese company to buy a big U.S. studio; it is also Wanda’s largest foreign acquisition. According to Variety, Wang hasn’t ruled out more forays into entertainment, saying “we want to have a bigger position in the global movie industry.”

Wanda, the largest commercial real-estate developer in China, has become the largest movie theater operator in the world after acquiring AMC Entertainment Holdings in 2012 for $2.6 billion. Orr adds, “Chinese business leaders recognize that many elements of the entertainment business are fully global and if they are to maximize their revenues they need to be able to seamlessly access global markets. Making international acquisitions can accelerate their ability to do so.”

Wang is also developing one of the world’s largest movie-production facilities in Qingdao, China, which includes 30 soundstages, a permanent set featuring a New York City street, as well as a theme park and resort hotel to accommodate families and staff of cast and crew. The public announcement of the studio included appearances from actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman as well as movie studio executive Harvey Weinstein.

Zhang believes more deals will come. Orr concurs: “Early Chinese moves into investing in foreign entertainment are seen to be successful in China, encouraging more to follow.”

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Getting Around the Film Quota

Hollywood can enter the Chinese market in three ways: through revenue-sharing films, flat-fee movies and co-producing a movie with a Chinese company. The quota of 34 films applies to revenue-sharing films, which lets foreign studios take 25% of the box office receipts or about half the norm for other parts of the world. Flat-fee films, which have a different quota, are not a popular vehicle because Hollywood sells movies for a fraction of their worth, according to the U.S. commission’s report. With co-productions, Hollywood can bypass quotas and receive about half of ticket sales.

“Now those smaller cities are becoming very important [to movie openings]. … A few years ago, they would concentrate in Shanghai and Beijing.” –Qiaowei Shen

Once the Chinese government gains more confidence that Chinese films can compete with Hollywood imports, the 34-film quota might increase, Shen says. “Competition doesn’t kill local movies,” she asserts. “They don’t need protection.” Last year, most of the top 10 films in China were local ones. Hollywood movies grossed 38% of box office receipts in China, a decrease from 46% the previous year.

Meanwhile, Hollywood is actively co-producing movies to get around the restrictions. Legendary is already producing The Great Wall, starring Matt Damon and Andy Lau fending off aliens bent on invading China. Zhang Yimou is directing the $150 million English-language project, the largest co-production between the U.S. and China, due out in late 2016.

Another big deal involves Lionsgate, makers of the Hunger Games franchise, partnering with Hunan TV, the second-biggest broadcaster in China. The $1.5 billion deal with will see the Chinese firm paying 25% of production costs of at least 50 Lionsgate films in the next three years in exchange for 25% of all returns.

Even Jack Ma, executive chairman and founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, is getting into the game. He was an investor in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. He also poured $4.8 million into a video platform since online movies are also seeing massive growth, according to a McKinsey report.

Meanwhile, Huayi Bothers Media will co-produce 18 films with STX Entertainment, founded in 2014 by Hollywood veteran Robert Simonds. Disney has a deal with the Shanghai Media Group and Warner Bros. is working with China Media Capital, a private equity firm. China Film Group, a state-run production company that works with imported films, has invested in Hollywood films like Furious 7, which broke box-office records in China.

DreamWorks believed in the co-production strategy early on. In 2012, CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg saw the Chinese market’s potential and partnered with Chinese state-owned businesses to open Oriental DreamWorks in Shanghai. This co-owned studio is behind the third sequel to the hit Kung Fu Panda animated film. With Kung Fu Panda 3 considered a local Chinese film, it was allowed to be screened during the popular Chinese New Year holiday period. To qualify as a local film, one-third of the production must be shot in China and one-third of the lead actors must be Chinese.

In a first, the movie’s English and Mandarin Chinese versions were released simultaneously in the U.S. and China. American actor Jack Black played the English-speaking panda and Chinese actor Jackie Chan played his Chinese counterpart. It was a winning strategy. In January, Kung Fu Panda 3 opened to a smashing $57 million first box office weekend in China — a record for an animation there — beating the U.S. opening by $16 million. “Certainly, I believe we will see a considerable number of animated movies released in this fashion,” says Orr.

Zhang notes that “Hollywood looks for [opportunities to make] money and China looks for influence and soft power.” But whatever intentions the government has, the Chinese studio’s priority is the box office. “Almost all the outbound investment by China’s entertainment industry has been made by very successful private-sector entrepreneurs. While they are very aware of the ambitions of the Chinese government, they are absolutely looking to make investments that will earn an attractive return for them,” Orr adds

Interestingly, American movies are sometimes made with the Chinese audience mind, knowing they’ll be subject to Chinese government censors. That leads to strategic creative picks. “You will not see a Chinese communist as a villain in a Hollywood big budget movie anytime soon,” says Zhang.

A decent encapsulation of Chollywood trends. No one is using the term 'Chollywood' anymore, but I have yet to see a better one replace it.

[GeneChing]

This article hinges on CTHD, which wasn't really a PRC film. It was more Taiwanese.

Oscars 2016: China Wants To Top The Box Office, But Oscar Nominations, Not So Much
BY MATT PRESSBERG @MATTPRESSBERG ON 02/21/16 AT 6:10 PM


“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” director Ang Lee holds his Oscar for best foreign-language film during the Academy Awards in Los Angeles in 2001.
PHOTO: HECTOR MATA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

LOS ANGELES — Chinese film kingpins want to make English-language movies that promote Chinese values worldwide. But impressing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apparently isn’t one of its goals.

Martial arts epic “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” won four Academy Awards in 2001, and was nominated for six more, including Best Picture. And as China is on track to become the world’s largest box-office market as soon as next year, it’s natural to expect the Chinese wave cresting over Hollywood to hit the Oscars sooner rather than later.

But repeating “Crouching Tiger’s” red-carpet success isn’t the blueprint Chinese studios and producers are following. Instead, they’re focused on English-language co-productions like animated comedy “Kung Fu Panda 3” and the recently pushed back to next year action-adventure “The Great Wall,” neither of which was made with the academy in mind.

Oscar nominees tend to be overrepresented by American or European historical dramas, which have little resonance in China, and movies that touch on contemporary political and social issues, which Chinese film censors have shown almost no interest in letting through. Also, movies with sexual themes, such as Oscar winner “Brokeback Mountain,” are generally a no-go in China, and not something its filmmakers would want to emulate.

And if that means Chinese-produced or co-produced movies walk away without many gold trophies, it may not matter much as long as they’re reeling in real gold at the ticket counter. With $128 million in receipts, “Crouching Tiger” is easily the highest-grossing foreign-language film of all time in the U.S. — by a cool $70 million. That reception from the masses seems to matter more to Chinese studios and production companies than the validation of academy voters, who have their own well-documented issues with recognizing films outside of their comfort zone.

There has been a flurry of activity over the past year, as Chinese movie companies have locked in co-production deals with Hollywood counterparts. The Chinese firms get financial exposure to a fully international slate of films, and the U.S. studios get coveted Chinese co-production status for some of their movies, allowing them to bypass China’s strict limits on the number — and timing — of foreign films it lets in.
Sky Moore, a partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan and the lead attorney on a three-year, $375 million co-production deal between “Hunger Games” studio Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and China’s Hunan TV told International Business Times the “holy grail” is to develop English-language blockbusters that can travel worldwide and use the peerless soft power of cinema to promote Chinese culture. He fully expects those films to play it extremely safe on anything controversial, which may be perfect for international mass appeal — but anathema to Oscar voters.

“They’ll certainly stay away from politics,” he said.

That’s not to say any movie with a message is a nonstarter for Chinese producers. While the superhero film “Deadpool” overshadowed everything else this past weekend, the second-biggest movie worldwide was “Mei Ren Yu (The Mermaid),” which set a first-day record when it was released Feb. 8 and has since become the biggest-ever movie in China.

“Mermaid” is about a marine-life destroying real estate developer who falls in love with a mermaid sent to kill him. It has an unapologetic pro-environment message, which would probably be controversial in parts of the United States, but not to the Chinese censors. But most importantly, it sells. So while “Mermaid” might not get any Oscar love, that’s not what its producers care about. The movie opened Friday in the U.S. at 35 theaters and brought in $1 million, a sizable $29,000-per-theater average. To Chinese producers, that’s a brighter sign than a gold statuette.

Deadpool
Mermaid

[GeneChing]

I copied all the posts about Wanda into its own indie thread: Wanda & AMC. That'll make them redundant but there were 35 and I didn't feel like going through and sorting them out. From now on, I'll post Wanda news there.

China Could Beat Hollywood by 2017
The country’s box-office sales are growing an average of 34 percent a year.
Anousha Sakoui Bloomberg Businessweek Reprints
February 24, 2016 — 5:00 PM PST


Zhu Bajie, a half-man, half-pig character from the hit Chinese film The Monkey King 2. Source: China Lion Film Distribution

To celebrate the Lunar New Year, Fei Li did what tens of millions of other Chinese did: She went to the movies. The 29-year-old finance professional and six family members, from her 91-year-old grandmother to her 6-year-old niece, went to see The Mermaid at the Capital Cinema in Beijing’s Xicheng district. “We all love it,” says Li, who paid about 35 yuan ($5) to see the movie a second time.
Buoyed by holiday audiences, The Mermaid, a quirky comedy from director Stephen Chow about a mermaid who falls in love with a real estate tycoon she’s sent to assassinate, is the highest-grossing film of all time in China. It’s rung up more than $440 million in ticket sales since opening on Feb. 8, according to box-office researcher EntGroup, overtaking local hit Monster Hunt and Hollywood’s Furious 7.
“What we are finding is that the technical expertise is getting far better than it was, and the Chinese audience is responding,” says Marc Ganis, co-founder of Jiaflix Enterprises, which helps market and distribute films in China. “The Hollywood blockbusters were just so far superior, many Chinese would go and watch those and live with subtitles and voice-overs,” he says. “Now they don’t have to.”



The latest box-office success signals a shift in the movie industry’s balance of power. Facing a quickly growing and maturing Chinese market—average growth in recent years has been 34 percent—Hollywood is looking to deepen its relationship with China in mutually beneficial ways.
Chinese moviegoers “now have big-budget, action-packed domestic films that can compete with Hollywood in terms of both special effects and far more interesting stories for the local populace,” says Jonathan Papish, an analyst with researcher BoxOffice.com.
In February, China broke the global box-office record for a single week—$557 million from Feb. 8-14, EntGroup says, all for local productions, because imports aren’t shown during the holiday period. The country surpassed a $534.7 million record set in the U.S. in late December, after the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. At this rate, China could overtake the U.S. in annual ticket sales as early as 2017, industry watchers say.
China has been a focus for Hollywood studios in recent years as the U.S. film market has stagnated. In 2015, China’s box office totaled $6.8 billion, up 49 percent from the previous year, says consulting firm Artisan Gateway. The North American (U.S. and Canada) box office had its biggest year ever in 2015 at $11.1 billion, thanks to several franchise releases, including Star Wars. But it dropped almost 2 percent from 2010 through 2014, to $10.4 billion, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Since 2012, Hollywood’s share of the Chinese market has fallen from 49 percent to 32 percent, says EntGroup.
China limits U.S. movie imports to 34 annually. The industry is closely managed by two government-controlled entities, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film & Television (SAPPRFT) and China Film Group, which select the films that will enter the market, set opening dates, and determine the number of screens.
Hollywood is seeking to strengthen its foothold in China to take advantage of the fast pace of growth. Studios including Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. have struck partnerships with Chinese film and media companies to gain bigger audiences at more venues. (The country has about 31,630 movie screens; it added 8,035 last year.) The deals “give U.S. producers someone with relationships at the regulatory level in China to call on” to increase access to the market, says Rance Pow, founder and president of Artisan Gateway. And that China now boasts more accomplished filmmakers only adds to the interest.
Amount of revenue from local Chinese films in 2015: 62%
Since 2014, Paramount Pictures, working with SAPPRFT, has invited several Chinese directors to training programs in Los Angeles. The project benefits all parties, says Rob Moore, Paramount’s vice chairman: “The real upside for us is being able to spend time and get to know a number of these top Chinese filmmakers and get their perspective on the Chinese market, which has been paying dividends for us in terms of the success of Mission: Impossible and The Terminator.”
Chinese companies also have boosted their investments in Hollywood. China-based studio Perfect World Pictures said in mid-February it would spend more than $250 million on 50 movies produced over the next five years by Comcast’s Universal Pictures, whose Furious 7 has brought in $390.9 million in China ticket sales since opening there last April. In January, Wang Jianlin, chairman of conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group, became the first Chinese person to control a Hollywood film company after buying Legendary Entertainment, the co-producer of Jurassic World, for $3.5 billion. “The Legendary deal is a puzzle piece” for Wanda, Pow says. “It’s a component of a bigger and grander strategy to become globally integrated in the film business.”
Hollywood and China are growing more comfortable with each other. In the future, says Jonah Greenberg, head of the China operation for Creative Artists Agency, Chinese directors will make big-budget movies in English for a global audience. In February, Universal Pictures plans to release director Zhang Yimou’s The Great Wall with Matt Damon in the largest production ever shot entirely in China.
Many in Hollywood say China’s thriving industry could ease the curbs on imported films. A U.S.-China memorandum of understanding setting the film quota expires next year, and new terms will be needed.
“We believe it is in the long-term best interests of the U.S. studios if there is a thriving Chinese marketplace that will both lead to the Chinese movie business continuing to expand, as well as hopefully more opportunity for U.S. movies and U.S. studios,” says Paramount’s Moore.

—With Stephen Tan and Grace Huang
The bottom line: Box-office sales are growing 34 percent a year in China, which could overtake North America as the biggest movie market in 2017.

More on The Mermaid here.

[GeneChing]

...and reiterates the 2017 prediction. Man, I'm going to have to expand my column in our print mag.

China Box Office Pulls in Massive $1B in February, Topping North America
3:11 AM PST 3/1/2016 by Patrick Brzeski


'The Mermaid'
Courtesy of Star Overseas

If the current rates of growth keep up in China, the country will surpass North America as the world's largest film market in early 2017.

Fueled by a raft of local blockbuster hits over the Lunar New Year holiday, monthly box office in China reached a record high in February, surpassing North America for the second time in history.

Already the world's second-biggest theatrical market, China is rapidly closing the gap with North America, still the world's largest.

Chinese cinemas took in $1.05 billion (6.87 billion yuan) in February, the official Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday (March 1), citing the country's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. The haul was a 50 percent increase over the same period last year, when China beat the full-month U.S. gross for the first time ever. The total also easily eclipsed last July's record monthly gross of 5.5 billion yuan.

Thanks to the breakout blockbuster performance of 20th Century Fox's Deadpool ($285.2 million domestically, and counting), North America's box office total for February is expected to come in just shy of $800 million, a substantial jump over last year's $765.9 million.

Hong Kong filmmaker Stephen Chow's literal fish-out-of-water rom-com The Mermaid contributed nearly half of the huge Chinese haul, pulling in a historic $485 million from Feb. 8 to Feb. 29. Having already crushed Monster Hunt's former all-time record of $385.2 million, the film is expected to become China's first movie to cross the half-billion mark.

Further buoying the huge monthly numbers was fantasy sequel The Monkey King 2, starring Aaron Kwok and Gong Li, which earned $178.1 million over 22 days in February. Meanwhile, the latest installment in director Wong Jin's comedy-action gambling franchise, From Vegas to Macau 3, pulled in $167 million. Hollywood's contributions toward the historic gross were comprised by Kung Fu Panda 3, which has earned $149.5 million since its debut on Jan. 29 (a new record for animation in the territory), and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon II: The Green Destiny, which has grossed a healthy $36.8 million in the Chinese market, despite withering local reviews.

China's total for 2016 thus far sits at $1.6 billion (10.71 billion yuan), representing a surge of 57 percent over the first two months of 2015. If the current rate of growth keeps up, China will reach $9.2 billion for the full year. In 2015, total box office revenue in North America was $11.1 billion.

China is currently on course to overtake North America in the first half of 2017.

We've discussed almost all of these films here:
Deadpool
The Mermaid
The Monkey King 2
Kung Fu Panda 3
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon II: The Green Destiny

Someone here needs to see From Vegas to Macau 3, start a thread and review it here.

[GeneChing]

The 'anti-Netflix' is worth $125 million and moving into China to capitalize on the booming film market
Nathan McAlone
23h


Mubi

Since 2007, London-based Mubi has quietly built a reputation as a stellar streaming service for serious film lovers.

While Netflix has grabbed the headlines, Mubi has survived and thrived, snagging a recent valuation of $125 million and sweeping into China ahead of its much-larger rival.

Last year, Paul Thomas Anderson, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker and indie heavyweight, chose to give Mubi the exclusive streaming rights to his new film, "Junun." For reference, Mubi has 100,000 subscribers, while Netflix has 75 million.

So how has Mubi found success in a Netflix world? In part, it's because Mubi thinks of films as something distinct from "video" or "content," CEO Efe Cakarel tells Business Insider.

"We used to have this all-you-can-eat buffet, similar to Netflix but for independent films," Cakarel says.

But a few years ago, Cakarel realized that people don't consume movies the same way they do TV shows. Searching Netflix for a new show might be annoying, but once you've found it, you can settle into hours of binge-watching before you go back into research. With movies, it's more painful, since you have to start that search again every two hours. In other words, too much choice can be a burden.

That's when Cakarel decided to shift Mubi's $4.99-per-month service to a heavily curated model.

"We have the rights to thousands of films per country," he says.

But as a Mubi subscriber, each country's curatorial team picks 30 films every month that you can watch — one is added and one removed every day. This makes the process of picking easier, he says.

You trust that you'll enjoy any of the 30, though you have to enjoy movies of a particular type — indie, no Michael Bay.

Man, since Chinese New Year, our MM&PC subforum here has just been all cray cray.

Here's a little more (but we knew this already). Odd that the author singles out Bollywood stars when he's talking mostly about the Chinese Box Office, but we'll let that slide. And I've seen PK. It's awesome.

You’ve Never Heard of the World’s Biggest Movies and Stars
By Sean Cunningham | 03/02/2016 |



In February, China’s box office topped North America’s for the first time ever. Wait, “topped” is too weak a word—the U.S. and Canada combined for just under $800 million while China raked in over $1 billion, meaning they could have spotted us the domestic gross of 007’s Spectre and still won.

And it’s not just China. Quick, which of these men wasn’t one of the 10 highest paid film actors in Forbes 2015 rankings?

A. Amitabh Bachchan
B. Salman Khan
C. Akshay Kumar
D. Leonard DiCaprio

The answer, of course, is D.

Yes, Leo’s mere $29 million over the 12-month ranking period wasn’t enough to push him ahead of three Indian megastars. Bachchan ($33.5 million) is semi-known to Americans thanks to The Great Gatsby—sharing the screen with Oscar-winning pauper DiCaprio—and a shout-out in Slumdog Millionaire when our young hero literally crawls through **** to meet him. Khan and Kumar haven’t received any mainstream attention on these shores, but it didn’t stop them from earning $33.5 and $32.5 million, respectively.

So, if you’re looking for a bit more international flavor with your blockbusters, here are five massive films that mostly missed us. As the debate rages over Hollywood’s extreme whiteness, consider this your opportunity to embrace diversity and profits.

PK (2014)
World Box Office: Roughly $120 million
Individual Bollywood films don’t tend to make much by Hollywood standards—it’s hard to rake it in when your ticket prices range from under a dollar to maybe four bucks—so it’s notable that PK became the first Indian flick to crack the $100 million barrier. Watch star Aamir Khan in the un-subtitled trailer of this comedy about an alien learning to live on Earth that enraged religious groups… and find yourself absolutely baffled by a movie that plays like Billy Madison with more musical numbers. Incidentally, PK earned over $10 million in the U.S.—more than the most recent films by Paul Thomas Anderson, Sofia Coppola and Woody Allen.

Dragon Blade (2015)
World Box Office: Over $120 million
Jackie Chan’s American conquest began with the 1996 release of Rumble in the Bronx, followed by 1998’s Rush Hour, which became a franchise that has earned over $500 million in the U.S. You probably haven’t seen too much of Jackie recently, but don’t worry: He stays busy across the Pacific making movies like this one. Set on the ancient Silk Road—if you’ve longed to see John Cusack as a Roman general, behold—Dragon Blade was essentially unreleased in the U.S., collecting $74,068. It did slightly better in China ($116.8 million), a big reason Chan was second to only Robert Downey Jr. in the last Forbes rankings, as he earned $50 million and has a net worth estimated as high as $350 million.

Red Cliff: Part 1 and 2 (2008 and 2009)
World Box Office: Nearly $250 million
In 2003, I interviewed John Woo while he edited the Ben Affleck film Paycheck and asked if he’d ever return to Hong Kong, where he directed classics The Killer and Bullet in the Head. He said no. We were both wrong: Woo left L.A. but went to the mainland. The recreation of a war fought 1,800 years ago showed China could make epics to rival Hollywood’s. (Further confession: I watched both parts at a screening on the Fourth of July—don’t tell President Trump, anybody.) While Woo’s Face/Off and Mission: Impossible II made a combined $327 million in America, a version condensing the two Cliffs into a single film earned just $627,047 here, as he joined Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun-Fat, Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh in finding American success, then deciding they’d be fine without it.

The Intouchables (2011)
World Box Office: $426.6 million
Intouchables, not Untouchables. Anyone expecting to see Sean Connery take down Capone is in for a jolt, as it’s a French movie about a super-rich white paraplegic who decides his caretaker should be a young black “street guy.” [INSERT COMEDY HERE.] Proving Asia isn’t the only continent capable of making non-Hollywood hits, The Intouchables became a massive, critically acclaimed success across Europe and additional lands other than ours. (Japan quite liked it.) One way that it differs from American films: Our trailers are less likely to include characters bonding over a Hitler mustache.

The Mermaid (2016)
World Box Office: $500 million and counting
American audiences know actor/writer/director Stephen Chow for comedies Shaolin Soccer (2001) and the Golden Globe-nominated Kung Fu Hustle (2004). Chow has since cut back on acting, which leaves more time to serve on China’s “top political advisory board” (you know, as one does). The Mermaid offers more of what fans of Chow’s earlier work adored: deeply strange jokes that are often very funny, such as a man’s attempt to describe a mermaid to a police sketch artist who can’t quite get that human/fish ratio right. While Chow’s 2008 E.T.-esque CJ7 squashed his American career and The Mermaid shows limited signs of reviving it, with the money this one’s raking in, one has to wonder if he even really gives a ****.

Dragon Blade
Red Cliff
The Mermaid
SPECTRE

[GeneChing]

I thought we had more on this film.

Hong Kong Filmart: China Film Group Files Lawsuit Over 'Wolf Totem' Streaming
3:26 AM PDT 3/23/2015 by Clifford Coonan


UniFrance

The state colossus is suing web firms Youku Tudou, Baidu and Sina Weibo for copyright theft.

Chinese state-owned film company China Film Group has filed a lawsuit against online streaming services Youku Tudou, Baidu and Sina Weibo for copyright infringement of the movie Wolf Totem.

The $40 million Sino-French epic from Jean-Jacques Annaud had grossed $107.46 million in China by last week. But China Film Group claims that the online streaming services had infringed copyright by allowing their sites to be used for illegal downloads of the film and is seeking damages of $410,000 (2.54 million yuan), with most of the claim levied against against Youku Tudou.

A court in Beijing has now accepted the case. The plaintiff stated that China Film Group was the copyright owner for Wolf Totem in mainland China, and that the three companies had caused significant losses during the film's theatrical release.

After the movie bowed, China Film Group discovered a number of links through the Baidu search engine. The company sent a letter on Feb. 28 asking for their removal, but alleged that Baidu had not complied.

Sina Weibo deleted similar links when requested, although others are said to have later appeared. China Film Group also alleges that Youku Tudou provided online movie-on-demand services for the film without payment.

Oh well. It could have been worse.

[GeneChing]

More like Hollywood caters to Chinese culture to capture its market.

ENTERTAINMENT 20 hours
China enlists Hollywood to spread its culture with blockbusters


"The Great Wall" star Matt Damon (left) and director Zhang Yimou discuss the film during a 2015 press conference in Beijing. | Andy Wong/AP
By Ryan Nakashima | Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — China has a new ally in its campaign to turn itself into a global cultural superpower: Matt Damon. And, behind him, a good chunk of Hollywood as well.

Chinese leaders have long sought international cultural influence, aka “soft power,” commensurate with the nation’s economic might. That’s brought us official Confucian institutes scattered across the world, billions of dollars in development aid and awe-inspiring Olympic ceremonies. But China’s own film industry remains a mere flicker on the global screen.


Which is where Damon comes in. Early next year, the star of “The Martian” will headline “The Great Wall,” a historical epic filmed in China with Chinese and American stars, a famous Chinese director, a cast and crew of roughly 1,300, a $150 million budget and some nasty monsters. (Not to mention the support of the Chinese government.) If all goes according to plan, the film could be China’s first international blockbuster — one that might presage a wave of similar films intended to present a new face of China to the world.

That’s a lot to expect from a decidedly unusual action flick. In “The Great Wall,” Damon plays a wandering European mercenary in the pre-gunpowder era who stumbles across the titular structure and learns what it’s really for. (Hint: Those monsters might be involved.)

But film-industry types on both sides of the Pacific believe this kind of joint venture could open huge new opportunities for all sides. For Hollywood, it’s about expanding markets and investment; for the Chinese government and private companies alike, it’s about harnessing American stars and storytelling to help movies based on Chinese history, myths and cultural icons break out onto a global stage.

Chinese authorities “have not made any secret of their desire to spread and to encourage and to develop soft power,” says Rance Pow, president of Artisan Gateway, a Shanghai-based research firm that tracks the Chinese box office. Regaling the world with made-in-China blockbusters, he says, is one way to do so.

Hollywood naturally welcomes Chinese investment to help fuel its voracious movie-making machine. One Chinese company — conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group — snapped up an entire Hollywood studio, Legendary Entertainment, for $3.5 billion. Legendary just happens to be the studio behind “The Great Wall.”

Working with Chinese partners also offers a shortcut past rules that limit the distribution of foreign movies in China’s booming film market. That could open up a vast new territory to U.S. studios — at least so long as they play by China’s rules.

“For U.S. industry, these concessions are really about market access,” says Thilo Hanemann, an economist with Rhodium Group, a research firm focused on global trade flows and government policies.

Of course, plenty could still go wrong. There’s no guarantee that either “The Great Wall” or another half-dozen or so would-be Chinese blockbusters will wow either Chinese or global audiences. Some previous efforts along these lines have been global flops.


“Kung Fu Panda 3” | Dreamworks Animation

This time, both Chinese and American movie executives think they’ve got the formula right. The most successful attempt so far is “Kung Fu Panda 3,” which has pulled in $314 million, including an outsized $149 million in China. Unlike its predecessors, the third movie in the series was produced by a joint venture between the series’ original studio, DreamWorks Animation and Chinese investors, including state-backed China Media Capital.

The biggest draw for Tinseltown is China’s huge and expanding film market. Cinema attendance in the U.S. and Canada has been flat for a decade, but Chinese moviegoers are on a tear, snapping up tickets worth $6.8 billion in 2015, up nearly 50 percent from a year earlier. At that pace, China could eclipse the U.S. as the world’s largest film market as early as next year.

But tapping that market has been a challenge. Chinese regulators allow no more than 34 foreign films to screen in China every year — far fewer than filmmakers release in the U.S. every month — and impose multiple “blackout” periods during which none at all can be shown. Regulators vary the length of the blackouts so that Chinese-made films eke out a majority of the market every year, Artisan Gateway’s Pow says.

Films like “Kung Fu Panda 3” and “The Great Wall,” however, get ushered to the front of the line. Because of their Chinese backers, the films qualify for prime release dates. Their backers also get to keep a bigger share of the box office than they ordinarily would.

So Hollywood has eagerly welcomed Chinese partners. From 2000 to 2015, Chinese direct investment in U.S. entertainment firms amounted to $4 billion, according to Rhodium Group. That pace then skyrocketed in January with Wanda’s purchase of Legendary, which almost doubled that total by itself.

Chinese studios and investors have pledged another several hundred million dollars for Hollywood film slates. Warner Bros., DreamWorks Animation and Universal have linked up with state-owned enterprises and private companies such as electronics maker LeEco and Internet giants Alibaba and Tencent.

That flood of Chinese cash makes possible epic films like “The Great Wall,” helmed by internationally acclaimed director Zhang Yimou and filmed at a multi-billion-dollar production facility still under construction in Qingdao on China’s eastern seaboard. Legendary plans eight more Chinese-themed projects with similar budgets, says Peter Loehr, CEO of Legendary’s wholly owned subsidiary Legendary East.

“We’re hoping this is a model that works and that we can recreate it often,” he says.

But the Western appetite for China-centric films remains uncertain. Consider “The Flowers of War,” a 2011 film about the Japanese army’s vicious 1937 sack of Nanking. Despite star Christian Bale and a $94 million budget, the movie pulled in less than $500,000 in the U.S., according to Box Office Mojo.

The brutality portrayed in the film turned off foreign audiences as a “kind of propaganda,” says Peter Li, managing director of CMC Capital Partners, a unit of China Media Capital.

Foreign co-productions could suffer a similar fate if they grow too heavy handed in an attempt to satisfy Chinese censors, who oversee all films released domestically. “If you promote socialist core values, you’re not going to succeed overseas,” says Stan Rosen, a University of Southern California political scientist.

[GeneChing]

We knew this, of course.

Chinese movie market aims to become No. 1
During the month of February, the box office revenue in China outgrossed that of North America for the first time. Will China become the biggest market for movies?
By Molly Driscoll, Staff writer MARCH 22, 2016


FilmRise/Edko Films Ltd./AP
A scene from 'Monster Hunt,' one of the top 10 highest-grossing films in China in 2015.

The power of the Chinese moviegoer continues to grow. During the month of February, the box office revenue in China outgrossed that of North America for the first time.

The achievement comes as the international box office has become increasingly important to Hollywood over the past several years. Remember the 2012 remake of “Red Dawn”? In the new version, the invaders were digitally changed from Chinese to North Korean during post-production to appease Chinese audiences. In addition, more movie theaters are being built in China, and experts are predicting the Chinese movie market could completely outpace North America’s by 2017.

So what happened in February? Before you think Hollywood is about to lay down a walk of fame in Beijing, there are some cultural differences to consider. Aynne Kokas, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia who specializes in Chinese media, points out that the comparison is not a perfect one because February includes the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday when more people are going to the movies in China, not unlike December in North America.

In addition, one hit film played a big part in China’s record turnout. The Chinese film “The Mermaid,” released on Feb. 8, is now the highest-grossing movie ever in China.

An interesting movie to watch going forward, however, says Ms. Kokas, will be the upcoming film “The Great Wall,” from Chinese director Zhang Yimou and featuring big-name Hollywood actors (Matt Damon, Willem Dafoe) alongside successful Chinese actors (Andy Lau, Tian Jing). “The Great Wall” is scheduled for an early 2017 release by Legendary Entertainment, which was recently purchased by Chinese company Dalian Wanda Group.

These new developments on the cinema landscape show that we can expect more Hollywood and China partnerships to come.

For reference:
Monster Hunt
Red Dawn
The Mermaid
The Great Wall

[GeneChing]

I suppose this is better than ghost screenings...

China to Reward Cinemas for Favoring Local Films Over Hollywood Imports
10:55 PM PDT 3/27/2016 by Patrick Brzeski


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

Movie theater chains in China that ensure Hollywood films take no more than one-third of total box office will be granted a sizable tax rebate.

China is introducing another layer of protectionism to give its domestically produced movies an edge over Hollywood imports.

Last week, state regulators announced that Chinese theater chains that generate at least two-thirds of their box office receipts from local Chinese films will be able to keep half of a five percent tax they usually pay on ticket sales.

The China Film Bureau normally collects a five percent tax on all box-office revenue. The funds are channeled towards various government grants and initiatives designed to aid the development of the Chinese film sector.

Under the new rules, to qualify for the rebate Chinese theater groups must ensure that imported movies take no more than one-third of the box office for the full year, and the exhibitor must have a clean regulatory record, with no history of box office under-reporting or fraud. Throughout its recent, historic expansion, the Chinese film industry has been dogged by cases of box office embezzlement and manipulation, and Chinese regulators have repeatedly vowed to crack down on offenders.

China employs various measures to protect its fast-growing domestic film industry. The country's notorious quota system restricts foreign film imports to just 34 titles per year on revenue-sharing terms. The quota was raised from 20 titles to 34 in 2012, in a landmark deal that temporarily resolved a bitter dispute that had led the United States to file an official complaint with the World Trade Organization alleging that China was unfairly restricting access to its market.

In addition to the quota, Chinese regulators have employed subtler protectionist tactics, such as blackout periods on foreign film releases during popular summertime and holiday moviegoing periods, as well as strategic scheduling of release dates, whereby top local titles are given the best weekend opening windows.

It's not clear how much of an immediate effect the new tax break will have on exhibition patterns, given how successful the existing methods have already been. Over the past two years, Chinese blockbusters have made impressive gains. Stephen Chow's Hong Kong-China co-production The Mermaid, for example, grossed a record $520 million since its debut in mid February.

In 2015, Chinese films claimed 61.6 percent of the $6.78 billion box office total. So far this year, their share has climbed to about 70 percent, while Hollywood has dipped to a record low. As recently as 2014, Hollywood claimed some 45.5 percent of the Chinese theatrical market.

Nonetheless, China remains a rapidly growing market for the U.S. studios, due to the explosive growth of the Chinese box office overall, which expanded by 48 percent last year. The country is on course to surpass North America as the world's largest theatrical territory in 2017.

[Jimbo]

When I first went to Taiwan, a local in-law of the family I initially stayed with told me that Taiwan limited the number of Japanese movies allowed to screen in theatres to no more than 2 or 3 per year (I can't remember which). He said it was because Japanese movies were so popular there that they outperformed the local movies. I don't know if this was true or not. This was back in 1984.

[GeneChing]

I thought the Taiwanese bore a lot of resentment towards the Japanese after WWII.

[Jimbo]

I thought the Taiwanese bore a lot of resentment towards the Japanese after WWII.

Oh, no doubt there's that. But my heritage is Japanese-American, and I personally experienced very little anti-Japanese attitude there, including from those who knew what I am. The Taiwanese family who opened their home to me certainly knew, and they treated me very well, with respect. Interestingly enough, their youngest daughter treated me like an older brother.

A lot of younger people liked many of the young Japanese actors/actresses/idols, and Chinese translations of Japanese manga were extremely popular. In all my years in Taiwan, I saw Japanese movies in theaters a total of 3 times, and each time they were pretty packed, even if the movie was crap.

The amount of resentment will vary with the individual, just like anywhere else. It might be a generational thing, too. Although, some older Taiwanese I've spoken to could still speak fluent Japanese as well as Taiwanese, but claimed their Mandarin was so-so. Some of them claimed to have preferred the Japanese to when the Nationalists took over. Since I don't speak Japanese or Taiwanese, we spoke in Mandarin.

There are tons of people right here in the U.S. who still hate/blame all Japanese people for WWII. And some idiots even still believe that Japan is trying to take over the U.S. The 1970s called and wants its misplaced paranoia back.