Hollywood tears through China's cinemas, stirring censorship fears

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/28/hollywood-china-box-office-godzilla

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Hollywood enjoyed a decisive victory in its campaign to conquer China last week when US-made films – Godzilla, Angelina Jolie's Maleficent, Tom Cruise's Edge of Tomorrow, X-Men: Days of Future Past and Grace of Monaco – took the five top box-office slots in the country.

The movie business is treating the clean sweep as a sign that its strategy for balancing the entertainment requirements of the world's two largest markets is paying off. Hollywood is devoting resources and star power to breaking open the tightly controlled region. Earlier this month, Jolie, Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Mark Wahlberg and Johnny Depp all went to China to support releases that could add up to a quarter of takings.

Seducing the Chinese market can be as simple as adding Chinese locations, such as in the recent James Bond film Skyfall. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, half an hour of action takes place in Hong Kong, with Chinese star Li Bingbing and a Chinese boyband added to the superhero mix.

With relations between Washington and Beijing tense, Hollywood's wooing of China can be similarly fraught. Two years ago, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained was yanked from cinemas after censors claimed it showed scenes too violent for Chinese audiences. Until its scheduled release last month, Warner Brothers was uncertain whether censors at China's state administration of press, publication, radio, film and television would permit the release of Godzilla, given its heavy association with Japan and the tension between Beijing and Tokyo over maritime territories.

Disney was concerned that Jolie's recent comments on the political sovereignty of "self-ruled Taiwan" might keep mainland Chinese viewers away. But Maleficent still took a respectable $22m at the Chinese box office after Jolie, husband Brad Pitt and several of their children shared a birthday cake with a crowd in Shanghai and took lessons in making dim sum.

Hollywood's current success will partially settle fears that it was losing ground to domestic Chinese releases. US film studios are counting on increased foreign sales to offset a decline in American cinema visits and the virtual collapse of the DVD market. The Chinese market was worth $3.6bn in ticket sales last year – more than enough to warrant substantial plot changes to appeal to Chinese filmgoers.

US film executives are urgently looking to make deals in China. Last week Jeff Robinov, a former Warner Bros president known for approving the Matrix series, The Lego Movie and Gravity, signed a $1bn deal with Chinese investment giant Fosun to make films in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Some executives say the deal could help film-makers get around Chinese rules that limit the number of foreign-made releases in the country to 34 a year. But with Chinese films' box-office share down 12% in the past year to 40%, there may be renewed efforts to counter the US invasion.

Critics warn that Hollywood's closer ties with Beijing could mean that film-makers are less willing to touch on sensitive topics such as the Dalai Lama, the Falun Gong sect, and the Chinese market for rhinoceros horn, ivory and other items from critically endangered species.

How much western culture Chinese audiences are willing to consume – and how much censors allow – is open to question. Disney recently announced an $800m deal with a Chinese consortium of state-owned companies to boost investment in Shanghai Disneyland, increasing the number of rides when it opens next year. The resort, one of the largest ever foreign investments in China, includes a 225-acre Magic Kingdom-style park with a castle surrounded by themed areas, with guests entering through a lush 11-acre garden.

But Chinese entrepreneurs are preparing to gamble on the Chinese ultimately choosing homegrown fare. China's wealthiest man, Wang Jianlin, owner of the AMC cinema chain in the US and Imax theatres in China, is reportedly planning theme parks across China celebrating its history and mythology.

"Wang wants to save China from American cultural invasion and Disney," said one executive familiar with the plan. "So he's going to make it better than Disney, with Chinese dragons, Shaolin warrior monks, the lot."