US movies cashing in on China market

As Transformers becomes China’s biggest ever

box office smash hit, the big US film studios aim to

reel in Chinese audiences in their millions.

By Jennifer Rankin

 Throughout Beijing, images of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and other protagonists in the latest Transformers film stare from bus station billboards, shopfront windows and even a statue near Tiananmen Square. As US film studios look further afield for profits, the Hollywood sign now looms over China.

On a Thursday afternoon at the Polybona Cinema in the city’s east, a few dozen Chinese movie-goers bought pricey tickets to watch Transformers: Age of Extinction in 3D.  During the screening, the overtures to Chinese cinemagoers are as clunky as the film itself. The small crowd laughed sporadically at the Chinese product placements —  a China Construction Bank debit card, a can of Chinese Red Bull — scattered throughout the blockbuster’s first half, mostly set in rural Texas.

Nonetheless, the producers’ approach has worked: the film has become China’s biggest ever box office success, generating ticket sales of more than $222mn (130mn) in less than a fortnight. Yang Yunfan, a 33-year-old advertising professional, said he enjoyed the film more than the prior entry in the long-running franchise, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which also set box office records in China.

“You know Transformers, the animated series, was really big in China in the late 1980s and early 90s, when I was in middle school,” he said.  “So many things in these movies pull directly from the cartoon  that’s something they’ve done really well.

“But there were really too many advertisements. When Hollywood studios started adding Chinese elements to their films about three or four years ago, it made us feel great we thought ‘Wow, China is really awesome, it’s a really important country now.’”

Recently, he said, Hollywood’s attempts to woo Chinese audiences have begun to feel superficial and forced. “If they included more content about Chinese families, or Chinese culture, that might be more interesting,” he said.

Nonetheless, the latest Transformers film is a text-book case of how Hollywood’s profit-making machine does its job with ruthless focus. In a bid to win over a Chinese audience, a large chunk of the action is set in Hong Kong, with roles for Chinese star Li Bingbing and boxer Zou Shiming, albeit smaller parts than those of their American co-stars. Producer Paramount has also pulled out all the stops to make a film that will please China’s censors, as well as state-run CCTV China Movie Channel and its online film streaming partner Jiaflix Enterprises, who backed the movie for an undisclosed sum.

While real-life Hong Kong residents took to the streets in their tens of thousands to march for democracy, the Transformers film shows a local leader calling on central government to save the day when the territory faces an invasion by the mutant robots.  The Chinese government is depicted as benevolent, while the US government manages to be both sinister and useless  typified by the black-clad CIA operatives  one of whom gets beaten up by a Chinese character.

Another reason for the film’s success is simple economics. China is opening 10 new cinema screens every day, so almost any film has a shot of being the biggest ever, says David Hancock, director of film and cinema at consultancy IHS Technology. He estimates that the Chinese cinema market will be worth $4.6bn in 2014, almost a one-third increase on last year.

And China has a lot further to go: it had 18,200 screens at the end of last year, compared with 40,000 in the US. If China had the same number of screens as the US per capita it would have 133,000 screens. “We are talking about a very, very large market,” says Hancock, who made that calculation. “Within six years China will probably be the largest film market in the world.”

Transformers is hardly the first attempt at buttering-up the Chinese film-goer: James Bond turns up in Shanghai and Macau in the latest edition of the 007 franchise, while Chinese stars Fan Bingbing and Wang Xueqi had small roles in the Chinese version of Iron Man III, although audiences reacted angrily when it emerged that their scenes were cut for the international version. The chase for the Chinese market also appears to have heightened the big studios’ natural risk-aversion to comedies, traditionally a bigger gamble, more likely to be lost in translation.

Data from Nomura and Box Office Mojo show that comedies now account for just 13% of new releases from the four big Hollywood studios, compared to almost a third in 2010.

“The centre of gravity of the film business is moving towards Asia,” says Hancock, who notes that Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and India are also increasingly important for Hollywood. The US studios have been shooting films abroad for decades, but the interest in cultivating Asian film-goers is a more recent trend.

“The internationalisation of production is already a fact. What we are having now is the Asian turn to be dominant in terms of consumption of movies and if you are a studio you have to stay in line with that trend; and that means focusing a lot of your attention or having a strategy to get into those markets.”

Not all Chinese officials sound convinced that the influx of Hollywood’s mutant cars and aliens is a good thing. In a recent comment piece entitled “Beware of superhero films”, the state-controlled China Daily worried that American superheroes may not be ideal role models. “The problem is that children and, even some adults, lap them up, helping them promote American lifestyle and values that do not necessarily conform to their own cultural values.” — Guardian News & Media

Dave Legeno, the onscreen villain in the Harry Potter movies, died while hiking in Death Valley here in California. The British actor played the werewolf Fenrir Greyback. He had also featured in the movie Snatch.

Legeno’s body was found by a pair of hikers July 6 in an area so remote that a California Highway Patrol helicopter had to be called in to transport it.

The 50-year-old reportedly died of heat-related problem and may have been dead for three to four days before his body was discovered, said the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department here, reports tmz.com.

Summer temperatures in Death Valley are known to go over 120 degrees F. Dave was also a Mixed Martial Arts fighter in Britain with a professional record of 4-3. — IANS

Paltrow, Martin ‘operating like couple’

After their “conscious uncoupling”, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin are now almost operating like a couple, reveals a source. The pair announced their separation publicly in March. But they have been spotted together numerous times in the Hamptons this week, reports pagesix.com.

While the duo dined with their children Apple and Moses recently, Martin dropped into a sports store to pick up skateboards before heading to meet the children Apple and Moses at a joint. A witness said “They were operating like a couple, and with the kids looked like a happy family.” A reconciliation could be in the works. — IANS

Pamela Anderson pens odd poem on marriage

Pamela Anderson has suprised everyone by posting a lengthy and eyebrow-raising poem on her Facebook page soon after filing for divorce from Rick Salomon. Her poem reveals her views on marriage, report usmagazine.com. “I love being in love but expectations make it impossible to be happy,” she writes in the poem. “I’ve tried so hard maybe it’s not in fashion/tradition just seemed so romantic. I guess it’s a used up ideal for the old fashion.”

The blonde’s poem goes on to reveal her apparent frustrations with men. Anderson also mentions “never marry a rich man”. Anderson, 47, revealed in January she had secretly remarried Salomon. The couple first tied the knot in 2007 but separated after two months and later had their marriage annulled. On July 3, she filed for divorce to end their second marriage. — IANS