in the fourth Transformers movie there's
a scene where a random guy in an
elevator helps stanley tucci beat
someone up that guy turns out he's a
Chinese boxer zou shiming a world
champion and cold medalist elsewhere in
the movie you'll see product placement
everywhere from a Chinese milk box and
even a Chinese bank ATM in Texas of all
places if you didn't recognize these
references that's because they weren't
meant for you the growth of China's
middle class has created a massive new
market for the entertainment industry
next year China's box office revenue
will likely surpass the US making it the
largest movie market in the world China
has built 27 new cinema screens per day
on average this year in as of November
2016 the country has more screens in
total than the US obviously the movie
makers in Hollywood want to reach those
customers transformers for a movie
criticized for literally making no sense
at all was the only film in 2014 to
collect over 1 billion dollars worldwide
at the box office thanks to Chinese
viewers the problem is the Chinese
government only allows a certain number
of foreign films to enter the country
each year and each one has to pass
through the government censorship agency
there's kind of contradictory impulses
on the one hand China wants to be the
best at everything they want to succeed
on the other hand they want to promote
what the leader is promoting Chinese
propaganda or socialist core values
before the 1990s very few Hollywood
movies made it to Chinese audiences the
Chinese government had its own film
industry and they used it to distribute
propaganda but it was failing in 1979
twenty-three point nine billion tickets
were purchased in 1993 that dropped a
nine point five billion but in 1994
things started to change the fugitive
became the first new American film set
for general release to the Chinese
public it was so popular that scalpers
outside theaters were getting double the
price of the ticket one dollar and
twenty five cents ten foreign films were
allowed in 99
before and since then Hollywood has
pushed the US government to continually
negotiate for higher quotas these days a
us film typically makes it into a
Chinese movie theater in one of three
ways through revenue sharing
co-producing with a Chinese company or
through a flat fee the most common is
the revenue sharing model where the
studio gets 25 percent of the revenue
but only 34 films per year are allowed
over the last 10 years American films
have strategically incorporated positive
Chinese story elements to bolster their
chances of being one of the films
selected in Red Dawn the enemy was
originally China but changed to North
Korea in post-production in the film
2012 Oliver Platt says praising China
for building arts in advance World War Z
the book had the virus start in China
due to illegal organ trade that's not
the case in the movie and the Martian
the Chinese space industry saves the day
thanks to my uncle Tommy in China we got
another chance at this millions of
dollars were actually invested in the
film by Bona Film Group in China it's
important to note though that studios
don't have to do this Harry Potter is a
great example if you look at these
regulations the very strict sense the
theoretically something like a Harry
Potter film should not be shown because
you're not supposed to have superstition
and wizards and things like that but
it's very hard to deny the Chinese
audience Harry Potter now there are two
ways to get around the 34 film limit the
least popular among big Hollywood
studios today is the flat fee model
because they're selling the film at a
fraction of the cost and China gets a
hundred percent of the ticket sales the
other option is Co producing the movie
with the Chinese companies so that it's
not technically a foreign film but Co
productions are the most tightly
regulated with strict guidelines on
things like the film shooting location
and its finances it also has to have at
least a third of the cast be Chinese
in short China's somehow has to play a
significant role in the film and
it can't be as the village 12 Evans when
I kill the man before looper was
released its director and studio
partnered with dmg a Chinese based
entertainment company to adapt the film
to a Chinese audience dmg recommended
that the script be rewritten to take
place in Shanghai rather than its
original location in Paris but
ultimately separate American and Chinese
versions of looper were released because
the Chinese scenes in the film didn't
resonate with US and international
audiences and that's always the issue
when you're dealing with China and
deciding on a co-production as important
as the China market is it's not the only
market ultimately China wants their own
films to outnumber and outplay their
foreign competitors so they're building
their own Hollywood it's an eight point
two billion dollar investment slated to
open April 2017 from the same company
that actually bought AMC in 2012 and
subsequently doubled their ticket sales
sure
China will share their facilities with
US studios but their doors are still
only half open that film quota that has
held the u.s. at bay for the last two
decades will also apply to Hollywood
studios vying to book the
state-of-the-art facilities
[Music]