The last “Iron Man” movie from Disney’s Marvel Studios was co-financed by the Chinese production company DMG Entertainment. But outside of a villain called “The Mandarin” — and a few extra sequences shot with Chinese actors for the version of the movie released in China — “Iron Man 3” was pretty much a very American movie.
Hollywood studios are starting to change course in how they work with Chinese partners. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Warner Bros. — the studio that’s home to Batman and Superman — is in talks to co-finance a slate of movies that will be made in China, in Mandarin, for Chinese audiences.
These so-called “local language productions” have been made before by American studios around the globe but not, apparently, on the scale that Warner Bros. is planning.
Ben Fritz of the Wall Street Journal joins The Frame to explain.
Interview Highlights
How big a market is China and how fast is it growing?
China is the second biggest movie market in the world, but more importantly it's the fastest growing. So far box office this year is up — I believe — 43 percent, which is the kind of number you never see in the U.S. or any other major market. This is despite all the recent economic troubles there. For Hollywood studios who are looking to make more money at the box office, it's the most important place to be.
Historically imported American movies have dominated the box office, but that's not the case this year?
Yeah, that's right. What's interesting is that Chinese movies are finally becoming more popular in China and, in fact, within those box office numbers I cited before what's interesting is that local language production is up 63 percent this year and imported movies are only up 21 percent at the box office. Six of the top 10 movies so far this year have been Chinese movies. Filmmakers there are getting better at making movies that appeal to Chinese audiences.
So Warner Bros. will make movies in Mandarin for a Chinese audience, not to appeal to U.S. audiences, too?
Correct. They want to take more advantage of this fast-growing Chinese box office, but because the government has strict quotas on how many movies can be imported every year, there's not really much more opportunity for Warner Bros. to release more of the movies they make there. So the solution is to form a joint venture where they'll produce more new movies in China that are specifically intended for that audience.
What has the track record been like for other studios attempting to strike film deals with China?
It's been mixed. The good news for these American companies that are partnering with China in the past is that they've gotten a lot more access to the market. A lot of problems have come with it, the "Transformers" movie, for example, made a lot of money in China, but there were also numerous lawsuits against paramount due to, you could generously say, misunderstandings between the studio and the many partners they tried to work with. And of course there have been lots of censorship issues, the more in bed you are with state-backed companies or the government itself, the more you have to deal with the government's views on what's OK and what's not OK to show in your films.