Chollywood rising

[GeneChing]

The underlying implications are intriguing.

AMC Said to Be Talking to Chinese Buyer
By MICHAEL CIEPLY and BROOKS BARNES
Published: May 7, 2012

LOS ANGELES — AMC Entertainment, which owns the second-largest movie theater chain in North America, is in talks to sell the company or a significant stake in it to the Wanda Group, one of China’s largest theater owners, according to people briefed on the discussions.

The Loews AMC Theater on 34th Street in Manhattan in March. AMC is the second-largest theater chain in America.

If completed, the deal will begin a new phase in China’s push into the global film industry by sharply increasing its leverage with Hollywood and creating the first theater chain to have a commanding presence in the world’s two largest movie markets.

The people who described the discussions spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private and not finished. The off-and-on negotiations, they said, began more than a year ago, then became more serious in recent weeks, as AMC scrapped plans for a stock offering that would have raised as much as $450 million.

AMC has been owned since 2004 by an investment group that includes the Apollo Investment Fund, J. P. Morgan Partners, Bain Capital Investors, the Carlyle Group and others. Apollo and its founder, Leon D. Black, also had a major stake in the chain before it was sold eight years ago for about $1.7 billion to a group in which Apollo and J. P. Morgan are the largest holders, with about 39 percent each.

Neither Gerardo I. Lopez, AMC’s chief, nor a company spokesman responded to queries. A spokesman for Apollo declined to comment. A representative for Wanda in China was not immediately available.

Any deal, whether for the entire company or for a major stake, would probably put a current value of roughly $1.5 billion on AMC. That figure is based on its reported cash flow of about $181 million for the 52 weeks ended Sept. 29 and an industry expectation that theater chains in the United States will continue to sell for as much as eight times their annual cash flow.

For AMC’s investors, a recent spike in ticket sales may present an opportunity to cash out an investment that has been in place longer than is usual for hedge-fund money and to invest in businesses with more growth potential.

Wanda’s interest in AMC comes as China has been rushing headlong into new business alliances with American movie companies, as it seeks to double the contribution to its economy from entertainment and media in the next five years.

Wanda, a conglomerate whose interests include commercial properties, luxury hotels and department stores, is involved with film production and distribution in China. It operates a rapidly growing theater chain that now has 86 multiplex locations, and a total of 730 screens, including 47 large-format Imax screens.

On its Web site, Wanda says it accounts for about 15 percent of China’s movie ticket sales, which were about $2.1 billion last year. Wanda has said that by 2015 it plans to more than double its screen count to about 2,000.

Founded in 1920 by three brothers with a single Missouri theater, AMC, based in Kansas City, later was a leader in building complexes to show more than one movie at a time. It now operates about 350 theaters with 5,050 screens. (The biggest theater chain is Regal Entertainment, which has 522 theaters with 6,580 screens.) AMC is known for having better locations than some of its rivals, which include Cinemark, the third-largest chain. Six of last year’s 10 top-grossing theaters belonged to AMC.

In the United States, the major movie studios are largely barred from owning theaters under federal consent decrees that long ago broke up an integrated system under which the majors were able to produce, distribute and exhibit their own films.

After the breakup, theater chains became the direct customer for studio movies. The theaters sell tickets to those movies, splitting the proceeds with the distributor under deals that are often fiercely negotiated.

Last year, however, AMC expanded into movie acquisition. It joined with Regal to form Open Road Films, which buys and distributes the kind of midbudget pictures that studios have started to neglect in favor of megabudget film franchises. Open Road releases have included “The Grey,” an action drama starring Liam Neeson that took in $51.6 million earlier this year.

AMC and the other big theater chains are experiencing an upswing because of blockbusters like “The Hunger Games” and “The Avengers,” which took in $207.4 million over the weekend to set an opening record. Ticket sales in North America for the year to date total $3.6 billion, a 16 percent increase from the same period a year ago, according to analysts. Attendance is up 18 percent to about 456 million.

But the last few years have been extremely difficult for theater operators. Last year, attendance in North America fell to 1.28 billion, a 4 percent decline from 2010 and the lowest total in 16 years. Ticket revenue for last year totaled $10.2 billion, a 3 percent decrease.

Chinese theatergoers have shown a taste for effects-laden American fantasies and action films like “Avatar” and “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol.”

On the flip side, Chinese-made films have made little impression in the North American market, which remains five times the size of China’s, though people briefed on the current deal say Wanda’s ownership of theaters here might create a pipeline for Chinese films in the United States.

[GeneChing]

China's Wanda to pay $2.6bn for AMC
By Patrick Frater
Mon, 21 May 2012, 14:00 PM (HKT)

Confirming weeks of rumours, it was today announced that Chinese property and cinema group Dalian Wanda Group Co Ltd 大連萬達集團股份有限公司 will pay $2.6 billion to acquire AMC Entertainment Inc, the second largest cinema circuit in North America.

The move, which is subject to regulatory approval, will create the world's largest cinema group. AMC currently operates 346 theatres with 5,034 screens primarily in the US and Canada (these include of 5,034 screens, including 2,336 3-D screens and 128 IMAX screens). Wanda has 86 theatres and a total of 730 screens in China as well as large-scale stage show, film production and distribution, entertainment chains.

Both companies are privately held, with AMC currently owned by private equity groups Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital, the Carlyle Group, CCMP Capital Advisors and Spectrum Equity Investors. Upon closing of the transaction, AMC will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Wanda.

"This acquisition will help make Wanda a truly global cinema owner, with theatres and technology that enhance the movie-going experience for audiences in the world's two largest movie markets. Wanda has a deep commitment to investing in the entertainment business and is already the largest in this sector in China, with more than $1.6 billion invested in cultural and entertainment activities since 2005," WANG Jianlin 王健林, chairman and president of Wanda.

"The time has never been more opportune to welcome the enthusiastic support of our new owners. Wanda and AMC are both dedicated to providing our customers with a premier entertainment experience and state-of-the-art amenities and share corporate cultures focused on strategic growth and innovation," said Gerry Lopez, CEO and president of AMC,

Wanda says it intends to invest up to an additional $500 million to fund AMC's strategic and operating initiatives.it also said that the deal is not expected to have any significant impact on AMC's 18,500 staff. Its operational HQ will remain in Kansas.

Kung Fu Wanda: China gets Hollywood makeover
Published: 21 May, 2012, 19:54
RIA Novosti/Aleksey Kudenko

North America’s second-largest movie theater chain has been bought by a Chinese company in a takeover that will create the world's biggest movie theater operator.

*AMC Entertainment Holdings was sold for $2.6 billion to the Dalian Wanda Group, with the Beijing-based company saying it will invest an additional $500 million in AMC's development.

While Wanda has his eyes set on Hollywood, Hollywood is shifting its focus to China.

The Chinese film market is booming with the rise of the middle class, causing US cinema productions to make decisions that favor Chinese audiences.

For example, Iron Man 3 will be filmed in China, guaranteeing the film will get a Chinese screening.

China has a quota for foreign films that can be released in the country. Even if a film passes through this restricting thoroughfare of 20 films a year, it must then pass the hurdles of censorship. However, Hollywood has already found a way around this by partnering with Chinese companies.

Given the success of Kung Fu Panda, Dreamworks announced a joint venture in February, Oriental Dreamworks, in order to develop in China. They are keeping 45 per cent in the company, while China Media Capital, Shanghai Media Group and Shanghai Alliance Investment will co-own the production company.

Since the US has dibs on the Chinese market, it was only fair and a matter of time before the Chinese made their big introduction, competing with the US cinema market.

The agreement gives Wanda access to the North American and Chinese movie markets, the world’s two largest. The US box-office had $10.2 billion in ticket sales last year, while China’s box office brought in more than $2 billion.

"This acquisition will help make Wanda a truly global cinema owner, with theaters and technology that enhance the movie-going experience for audiences in the world’s two largest movie markets," stated Wang Jianlin, chairman and president of Wanda.

The goal of developing technologically in filmmaking is shared by Yang Bu Ting, Chairman of China Mainstream National Film Capital Hollywood Group. He announced at a conference his broader objectives for opening an office in Beverly Hills. They hope to glean from their US counterparts’ techniques for distributing and developing visual effects and computer-generated imagery.

As Wanda also produces and distributes films besides owning theatres, American executives privately predict he might use his new American cinemas as a venue for releasing Chinese-made films in the US.

However, at the present, Wanda claims he has no intention of distributing movies in the US. The Wanda-AMC deal is currently awaiting approval by authorities in both the United States and China.

Wow. Well, at least I know one point in my next Chollywood Rising print column now.

[GeneChing]

Chinglish has always meant something entirely different to me.

Speaking a new language: Chinglish
By Patrick Frater
Thu, 17 May 2012, 14:45 PM (HKT)
Production Feature

English-language Chinese movies; it sounds incongruous. Except that in a matter of months many leading Chinese film groups have re-tuned their international strategies from being focused on selling more Chinese films abroad, or making co-productions within Asia, to one where they are instead hatching plans to work with Hollywood.

"There are so many people doing it now, they can't all be wrong," says Pietro VENTANI, the US and Beijing-based business partner of Rob MINKOFF who directed The Forbidden Kingdom 功夫之王 (2008) (pictured), the most successful Chinese-US co-production to date. "One of the imperatives for Chinese companies is to create content that can be exported. English-language is seen as that vehicle."

The US media conglomerates and the Motion Picture Association of America Inc (MPAA), have for years struggled to get what they wanted from the Chinese government (more film imports, better IP protection, theme parks and landing rights for US TV channels), so in Hollywood the new thinking has been welcomed with open arms. It comes down to money and the realisation that more can be achieved by working together than squaring off belligerently across the Pacific Ocean.

From the US perspective, Hollywood has learned that its domestic North American business is no longer growing, but that international export markets can replace that lost momentum. For certain kinds of films such as Transformers or 2012, the Chinese theatrical returns can outstrip even the more established mature markets of Germany, Japan and the UK. The recent Titanic (1997) re-release obliterated the film's previous box office record and saw the $126 million China take account for 48% of the film's cumulative gross outside North America.

Meanwhile Chinese firms and the Chinese industry regulators stopped pretending that their Chinese-language films were gaining ground in overseas markets. (The 2010 overseas box office figures for Chinese titles were greatly flattered by The Karate Kid 功夫夢 (2010), a largely financial co-production between Columbia Pictures and China Film Group Corporation 中國電影集團公司 which made a no better than okay impression at Chinese theatres.) For all that classy local films such as Let the Bullets Fly 讓子彈飛 (2010) or Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame 狄仁杰之通天帝國 (2010) could drum up fabulous box office in China, they were not selling or playing well abroad. And with budgets rising that was becoming a problem for Chinese film investors.

Attitudes and strategies have changed very quickly.

Only 3-4 years back the clever talk was about setting up co-productions that would allow US films a back door entry into China around the country's infamous, but in fact quite porous, import quota barriers. Paramount Pictures shoe-horned Mission: Impossible III (2006) in that way and, two years later, Universal did the same with The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor 神鬼傳奇３ (2008).

After years of fretting about censorship and local cast and crew requirements, last year some of that co-production talk turned into corporate structures. These included Relativity Media LLC's tie up with two financiers and Huaxia Film Distribution Co Ltd 華夏電影發行有限責任公司 , a state-owned film distributor; Legendary East Ltd, a Hong Kong-based joint venture between Legendary Pictures LLC, Huayi Brothers Media Corporation 華誼兄弟傳媒股份有限公司 and construction industry money men; as well as a $300 million fund launched by China's DMG Entertainment ＤＭＧ娛樂傳媒集團 to bring US partners in to China. With only slightly less fanfare, Village Roadshow Entertainment Group Asia also got underway, headed by Warner's former chief in China Ellen ELIASOPH.

Late last year Bona Film Group Ltd 博納影業集團有限公司 and Huayi Brothers, China's two largest private sector film outfits, both said that English language films would be a new priority.

"Hollywood has done a fantastic job promoting its industry to the world and projecting its universal values," says Bona CEO YU Dong 于冬. "We would like to leverage this Hollywood strength and add Chinese elements." As if to hammer home his point Yu had Catherine Zeta-Jones, who until now has had no role in a Bona-made movie, ring the bell at NASDAQ with him.

Then in February this year, after a long- running dispute that went to the World Trade Organisation for arbitration, Chinese and US ministers agreed to dramatically change China's quota and distribution regimes. More Hollywood films will be allowed in and they will earn better rental terms. Suddenly, executives openly asked whether the hard work of making co-production films could be ditched in favour of simply distributing more Hollywood tentpoles in China.

The answer seems to be no, or rather there will be more imports and more co-productions and probably other permutations as well.

Wealthy entrepreneur Bruno WU 吳徵, who grandly calls the latest cross-Pacific initiative Chinawood, says simply that Chinese companies have broadened their horizons and gone global. "We are entering a global industry that utilises the best talent available. Obviously, we want to build on the existing base of talented Chinese filmmakers and actors, but if you review the elements of the majority of successful films, non-native filmmakers and actors are involved no matter their nationalities."

In the past few years the 'non- natives' working in China were primarily Hong Kongers and Taiwanese. The future it seems will involve more from across the pond.

These days US film-makers Rob COHEN, Bill PAXTON, Doug LIMAN and Minkoff are already warming up China projects, while Keanu REEVES is actually directing his first feature (in Chinese, not English!) for Village Roadshow. Universal Pictures Inc and musician turned filmmaker, the RZA have The Man with the Iron Fists in the can, though it is not clear this will qualify as a full official co-production.

So far, actual green-lighting has been slow. DMG, run by Dan MINTZ, an American who has made his way through the Chinese advertising and film industries for nearly two decades, is exec producing Endgame and FilmDistrict's sci-fi movie Looper. But it takes a big step up with Iron Man III, which it will next co-finance, co-produce and co- distribute with Disney.

Large amounts of money seem to be ready, waiting to be put to the service of the new 'Chinglish' tentpole films. In addition to the Hollywood studios' own resources, Wu's Chinawood has earmarked $450 million for production investment, China Mainstream has announced a fund which will take big stakes in tentpole titles, while Ryan KAVANAUGH's Relativity can call on the resources of SAIF Partners, a leading Asian private equity firm, and IDG China Media ＩＤＧ中國媒體基金. Bona, Huayi and others are also understood to be readying structured funds.

The challenge, as it has been for every film since Forbidden Kingdom, is to get the culture right. Chinese Odyssey, being hatched by Minkoff and Ventani, exemplifies the problem. "We are working with China Film Group and Beijing Galloping Horse Film Co Ltd 北京小馬奔騰影業有限公司 and with Jim Hart on something that is originated and developed in China. It is not a super hero movie, but needs to work in Beijing, Chicago and Munich," says Ventani.

"Conflict is very important in Western story-telling, but that is not held up as a value by Confucian cultures. The character-arc, or hero's journey, is not so common in Chinese literary tradition. The bladesman is still a bladesman at the end."

continued next post

[GeneChing]

One of the biggest wake-up calls for Chinese film-makers in recent years was the global success of animated film Kung Fu Panda (2008). It took cultural symbols of China and fed them back to global and Chinese audiences with an irreverent appeal that Chinese film-makers might have struggled with. Yet the film's co-writer Glenn Berger says he did not see it that way.

"It is a classic underdog story. I never thought of it as particularly Chinese," he says. "It's the story of a man who had a dream, was poorly equipped to fulfil it, but pressed on anyway. It is largely independent of setting." Only after the first film did Berger (an Asian studies major at college) take a research trip to China to consciously soak up more Chinese elements for Panda's sequel. "Similarly Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 臥虎藏龍 (2000) is not a Chinese-themed movie. To me it is a love story," says Berger.

Panda gives DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc an unmatched calling card in China, where stories abound and the local animation industry has been stuffed with public money from city and state authorities. Dreamworks Oriental, its new joint venture with the Shanghai Media Group 上海文廣新媒體有限公司, should be able to choose to work with number of well- equipped local partners all hoping that some of Dreamworks' story-telling and script development magic will rub off.

However, pitfalls abound on the way to achieving a smooth 'China-wood' harmony — perhaps more so for live action producers than for the animation sector. Counter-pointing the upbeat fund launches and the new-found political entente, the past year has witnessed several sticky moments along the way.

These have included the late December rejection of the finance bonanza promised to Legendary East by Hong Kong investors and the embarrassing overseas flop of The Flowers of War 金陵十三釵, ZHANG Yimou 張藝謀's very Americanised take on the Nanjing siege which its producers thought was a shoo-in for the Oscars. Disney last year closed its Shanghai-based script development team and VoD player turned film producer Le Vision Pictures Co Ltd 樂視娛樂投資（北京）有限公司 found it impossible to set up The Expendables II as a Chinese-qualifying co-production.

Human rights problems butted in awkwardly into Relativity's 21 and Over, which in order to qualify for co-production status shot briefly in Shandong province, home of dissident Chen Guangchen. Chen recently escaped house arrest and sheltered in the US Embassy in Beijing, causing a diplomatic firestorm.

Most recently, US financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that it is conducting preliminary investigations into the China dealings of the Hollywood studios. It is concerned that to win business in China bribes may have been paid in contravention of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That has caused at least one Chinese company, perhaps temporarily, to suspend further co-prod ventures.

But others seem determined to press on. Legendary Pictures, which has a slate of Chinese-interest pictures in development, this month gave a new kick start to Legendary East with the hiring of former CAA China boss Peter LOEHR as its rainmaking CEO in China.

a nice overview of a lot of topics we've engaged here.

[GeneChing]

A Hong Kong odyssey
Updated: 2012-05-26 07:52
By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)

Hong Kong cinema is merging into the larger Chinese cinema, gaining strength and at the same time losing its own identity.

Hong Kong cinema used to be one of the three largest in the whole world, ranking behind only Hollywood and Bollywood in productivity. In absolute terms, mind you. Per capita, it could well have been larger than every film industry on the face of Earth.

Like all industries, Hong Kong's goes through business cycles. When I got hooked on Hong Kong movies in the late 1980s - in San Francisco's Chinatown no less, the industry was growing into the apex. A Better Tomorrow (1986) by John Woo whipped up a frenzy among movie fans, even in that small Chinese enclave in the city by the bay. An Autumn's Tale (1987), a sweet story about Chinese diaspora in New York's Chinatown, found a long queue snaking into the neighboring Italian community for its midnight premiere. "Women are trouble", Chow Yun-fat's chauvinistic putdown that disguises his affection for the female lead, turned into a catchphrase as he pronounced "trouble" in broken English, effectively changing it to "Women are teapots".

The die-hard fan base of Hong Kong cinema in the Chinese mainland did not get their informal education from Chinatown screenings as I did. They got it from round-the-clock video shows in dilapidated halls in county towns across the country. The exposure was both intensive and extensive, cramming decades of movie watching into just a few years.

A Hong Kong odyssey

By the 1990s, many of Hong Kong's movies were shot on the mainland, using the country's larger and cheaper pool of labor and vast choice of locations. Nominally these were co-productions, but the mainland partners chipped in nothing but the licenses, which only State-owned studios possessed at the time. Movies like A Chinese Odyssey (1995) were purely Hong Kong-made in the creative sense.

But the Stephen Chow spoof of the Monkey King story did not become a viral hit until mainland college students started watching it on pirated discs and squeezed subversive interpretations out of it. People viewed it with such religious fervor that many lines turned into code words among the young generation.

Throughout the 1990s, however, the Hong Kong film industry was in a nosedive, hitting its nadir in 2003 when the epidemic SARS struck the Special Administrative Region. Partly as a result of this disaster and pleas from the industry and the Hong Kong government, the central government included Hong Kong's film industry in its package of economic incentives, officially known as Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, or CEPA for short.

Under the new policy, Hong Kong films are no longer categorized as imports and therefore not bound by the quota (20 films a year at that time and now expanded to 34). As domestic productions, they are subject to the same level of censorship for content.

Nevertheless, censorship poses only half the problem, the other being Hong Kong filmmakers pandering to the mainland audience. The unique sensitivity implicit in many Hong Kong films was thought to be part of the local culture, understood by only those who share the Cantonese dialect and could not travel beyond the Pearl River Delta. It was given up for an embrace of the larger market.

Hong Kong filmmakers became highly employable in the early CEPA years, but a truly integrated cinema did not emerge for a long time. A mainland film, such as World Without Thieves, may cast a Hong Kong superstar (Andy Lau in this case), but it essentially remains a mainland work. On the other hand, Hong Kong movies give more and more token roles to mainland actors. Squabbles on movie sets between the two sides occasionally surfaced in the press, a result of conflicting work styles and work ethics.

Hong Kong film artists began to feel the constraints embedded in the enlarged market. Gangster and horror movies, two genres that are known for their easy return on investments and serve as training for new talents, are off-limit because they usually fall into the realm of the forbidden. Trickier than genres are certain details that may run foul with censors.

Being shrewd businessmen, Hong Kong filmmakers are quick to gauge the regulatory environment and rarely complain in the name of artistic expression. Peter Chan's Warlords (2007) was supposed to be a remake of Blood Brothers (1973), but that would associate it with the real-life assassination of a Qing Dynasty official and, for reasons nobody could explain, would be irksome to some in power. So, the story was further fictionalized.

By 2008, when Painted Skin was released, it was hard to distinguish the origin of a Chinese-language movie. Gordon Chan's ghost story was based on a literary classic, thus tiptoeing around the no-superstition rules. The unified vision behind the period drama transcends any local limitations, and the fact that the director is from Hong Kong seemed to be irrelevant. Well, the sequel, which is coming out soon, is helmed by Wuershan, a newcomer from the mainland.

Still, there are lingering questions why Hong Kong films tick. Amidst the rush to gain a big slice of market share, the cinematic charm of Hong Kong is lost - until someone again tells quintessential Hong Kong stories and inadvertently stumbles into broader appreciation. Ann Hui's The Way We Are (2008) and Alex Law's Echoes of the Rainbow (2010) did not attempt to break into the mainland market, yet the ordinary lives of people in Hong Kong, as depicted in these small art-house movies, resonated with a vast swath of mainlanders.

Besides, a few Hong Kong filmmakers have stayed behind to preserve their artistic vision - or out of necessity. Johnnie To, known for his gangster films rich in political overtones, has so far resisted toning down his trademark violence and innuendos to crack the market to the north. Others have found a new niche in genres too hot for the mainland to touch. The erotic genre may see a small revival after 3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy (2011) attracted hordes of mainland tourists who made catching the self-claimed, highly lifelike rendering of sex scenes, an essential part of their Hong Kong tour.

Other taboo genres that flourish only in Hong Kong include openly and graphically ****sexual stories such as Amphetamine (2010) and Permanent Residence (2009).

For those who understand spoken Chinese, one sign whether a film is a Hong Kong picture or a broader Chinese one is the dialogue. If something interesting is lost when viewed in Mandarin, this could mean the film is Hong Kong-made, even though it may be shot entirely in Beijing or Shanghai. Pang Ho-Cheung's Love in a Puff (2010) and its sequel Love in the Buff (2012) deal with a couple of youngsters from Hong Kong who fall in love during cigarette breaks and later migrate to Beijing. Instead of searching for commonalities that underpin most urban romances, Pang uses local differences as a palette to color his on-again off-again love affair. The side plot of a plain Jane from Hong Kong ending up with a mainland prince charming is simply and subversively hilarious. The story could also be taken as a parable for the evolving HK-mainland relationship, as many HK pictures subtly imply.

As more Hong Kong filmmakers make their home in Beijing, Hong Kong as a film capital of the East has ceased to exist. Its expertise and resources have injected Chinese cinema as a whole with much professionalism and vitality. Beijing is now indisputably the center of Chinese-language filmmaking, but Hong Kong may retain its status as a stronghold of innovation and tolerance, cinematic or otherwise.

I think the turnover of HK to PRC was pivotal, not only with some of the trends mentioned above, but with the effect it had on the content of HK cinema right around the transition. There were some fascinating films coming out then.

[GeneChing]

The new movie mogul

China Film Player Reveals Efforts to End Censorship (Q&A)
8:39 PM PDT 6/20/2012 by Patrick Brzeski


Wang Jianlin, chairman of Beijing-based Wanda Group, talks with THR about his recent purchase of AMC Entertainment, his admiration for Hollywood and why China needs to rethink the way it regulates film content.

Wang Jianlin’s story is one of the great rags-to-obscene-riches sagas of contemporary China. As a boy he endured the brutal deprivations of the Cultural Revolution; as a teen he joined the Chinese military; and when he later dropped out, having never finished high school, he went on to found a small private real estate business that would grow into a $35 billion conglomerate, employing 50,000 people, with holdings in shopping malls, office towers, luxury hotels, and Chinese entertainment outlets.

Now, the 57-year-old Wang -- China’s sixth-richest individual, according to the Harun China Rich List -- also is the proud new owner of AMC Entertainment, North America’s second-largest cinema chain. In a deal announced in late May, Wang’s Beijing-based Dalian Wanda Group acquired AMC for an estimated $2.6 billion, with $500 million allocated for direct investment and upgrades in AMC’s theaters. Adding AMC’s existing 5,034 screens to Wanda’s 730 in China (with a goal in place for 2,000 screens by 2015), Wang’s company is now the biggest film exhibitor on the planet.

In China, he’s regarded as one of the true visionaries of his generation. But his big buy into North American exhibition, where ticket sales declined by 4 percent last year, generally has been appraised as a risky bet by the international business commentariat.

In a frank conversation from his Beijing headquarters, Wang spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about his next big buys in the Western entertainment world, the hands-off approach he plans to take toward managing AMC and why China must reform its censorship regime if the country’s film industry is ever to compete on the global stage.

The Hollywood Reporter: You’ve mentioned in recent interviews that you’re interested in making further investments in movie studios, film production and live entertainment. What are your ambitions in this area?

Wang Jianlin: We don’t have concrete plans for movie co-productions with any Hollywood studios yet, but since the AMC merger and acquisition announcement, we’ve come around to this idea of working with big studios from Hollywood for film production. Eventually we plan to do that. For Wanda’s film production business at home, our target is to be among the top three in China within the next three years. But in regards to oversees production and related industries, we don’t currently have any set plans.

THR: We’ve heard that Europe is the next market you’re looking to buy into. Can you share some details about your plans and ambitions there? What are you pursuing?

Wang: Well, the first prerequisite is the successful transaction of the AMC deal. As you know, the AMC acquisition must first get the approval of the relevant American authorities. We’re going to seek to acquire one or two European theater circuits, but only after the successful closing of the AMC deal. Right now we’re holding some discussions with European theater chains, but because of confidentiality agreements, I can’t give you names yet.

THR: More generally, why have you chosen to target the global entertainment sector with Wanda’s considerable resources?

Wang: As you know, Wanda Group started by developing shopping centers, and at that time -- about 10 years ago -- movie theaters in China were run by state-owned companies. There were no cross-provincial companies running theaters. So it was at this point in time, with this opportunity in mind, that we first started our film and entertainment business. Right now, for our investments in culture industries, we’re pursuing five areas: film exhibition, film production, stage shows, chain entertainment outlets such as karaoke centers and, lastly, fine art collecting. Wanda is currently the largest private investor in the Chinese culture industry. Why? Because it’s good business. By the end of 2012, our revenue from our culture and entertainment investments will amount to $3.5 billion. Our target for the end of 2015 is $6 billion.

THR: What specific factors motivated you to acquire AMC Entertainment?

Wang: There were two main considerations. The first was to accelerate the expansion of Wanda’s theater circuit abroad. We want to be a global film exhibitor, and to develop this infrastructure on our own would take a very long time. Through the M&A, we could achieve this feat very quickly. Secondly, as you know and as others have said, considering the U.S. market alone, the rate of return on this kind of M&A is comparatively low. However, Wanda’s cinema business is seeking an IPO soon, and we’re expecting certain approval of our application. Following the IPO, we’re estimating that through renovation and remodeling of AMC’s theaters over the next one to two years, we’ll be able to generate profits. And we would like to put that into Chinese assets so as to generate its profits in a Chinese kept market.

THR: It’s been reported that Wanda-AMC is looking to show a more diverse lineup of content in AMC cinemas -- more Spanish and Bollywood programming has been mentioned -- and that Wanda’s $500 million investment will help make this possible. Are you interested in showing more Chinese content in AMC theaters as well? Is that a priority or a goal?

Wang: For Wanda itself, we don’t currently have any plans or a structure in place to export Chinese films. Whether AMC cinemas will show more Chinese films will be totally up to AMC’s current management, which we intend to leave intact, responding to market demand.

THR: Are you a big movie fan yourself? What kind of films and entertainment do you enjoy?

Wang: I’m actually not much of a movie fan. [Laughs.] Although I’m heavily invested in the movie theater business now, I seldom go to the cinema myself -- I’m a pretty busy person. I’ve only seen a couple of movies from the U.S. recently: Titanic and Kung Fu Panda, both in Imax and 3D.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

THR: The Financial Times recently reported that you eschew Hollywood fare because of its lack of “traditional Chinese morality.” Is it going to be uncomfortable for you if some of the films showing in your cinemas, both in China and the U.S., could be perceived as not particularly “moral”?

Wang: No, that report must have been mistaken. On the contrary, I very much admire and support Hollywood movies -- particularly the big ones. I find them very impressive, and they usually show a very positive attitude about life -- they capture some of the beauty of life and a sense of its true value. It’s actually Chinese movies that I often find unsatisfactory. I often don’t see much value in them.

THR: About that -- how do you assess the current state of the Chinese movie industry?

Wang: In my view, our culture and entertainment industry is still pretty immature. Its share of the world market and its share of the Chinese GDP is very, very small. That’s the reason that our government stipulated a very providential policy last year for developing this sector over the next 10 years. There have been a number of policies concerning laws and taxation introduced to encourage our entertainment industry. So I’m looking forward to a golden era sometime in the next 10 to 20 years in the development of Chinese culture and entertainment.

THR: What do you think is holding back the Chinese film industry? What needs to occur for Chinese filmmakers to compete with Hollywood on the world stage?

Wang: From my observations, there are three things holding back the Chinese industry. The first thing is lack of attention from the government and private enterprise. In recent years, we’ve attached great importance to the country’s economic development through core industries, while mostly ignoring culture and entertainment. The second reason has to do with the investors themselves. Before, our major investors in entertainment were just small and medium-size enterprises. There were no deep-pocketed investors like Wanda active in the industry. So that constrained the size of investment and the level of quality Chinese film production and entertainment could achieve. The last factor is our comparatively strict censorship system for film production and publication. These are the biggest factors that have been holding us back. But I think we’ve begun to acknowledge these issues and are now proposing solutions. Right now, as I mentioned, the Chinese government has attached great importance and has held many meetings and produced influential papers supporting the development of culture and entertainment. We need to attract more of China’s biggest enterprises to join this industry and make big investments, such as Wanda is doing. Thirdly, I think we should lose the censorship and approval system of film production and publication.

THR: Lose the censorship? Do you think that there’s a good chance that will actually happen?

Wang: It’s absolutely possible. There’s a chance.

THR: In your view, how has the censorship and approval process in China been hindering the industry?

Wang: A censorship system in general is not a problem. Many countries have a censorship system of some kind; the U.S. has its rating system. The problem with our system is that there is only one authority -- the film bureau [the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television] -- with a small number of people who are in charge of the approval of all films, which takes a long time. And some of these people will shoulder different ideas, so the directors will have to correct or make changes to their artistic vision, based on the opinion of a small number of so-called experts. This has severely held back the development of our film industry. I’ve proposed that we have to decentralize the censorship process and assign it to local, provincial governments. If we let different provincial governments handle the approval of various films, we can learn what works from the various instances and films. If that can be achieved, I believe the film industry of China can prosper.

Lose censorship in China? Seriously?

[GeneChing]

It has begun. Tomorrow two Chinese films are being distributed via AMC:

Flying Swords at Dragon Gate has a one-week run in 3D IMAX at 15 theaters

The Bullet Vanishes is also opening, but I don't know for how long or in how many theaters yet.

[GeneChing]

I'm excited for TC0 & CZ

Huayi thinks big
By Stephen Cremin
Thu, 13 September 2012, 12:05 PM (HKT)

China's Huayi Brothers Pictures Co Ltd 華誼兄弟影業投資有限公司 has expanded their partnership with IMAX Corporation to digitally remaster seven forthcoming films in the large screen format.

Huayi previously released FENG Xiaogang 馮小剛's Aftershock 唐山大地震 (2010) in IMAX in July 2010, which contributed to its — at the time — record-breaking RMB665 million (US$105 million) box office.

Feng's new film, wartime drama Back to 1942 一九四二, is among the new titles being converted. Although no opening date has been announced, Huayi confirmed that it will release the historical epic this year.

The new IMAX lineup launches with martial arts fantasy Tai Chi Zero 太極１　從零開始 on 27 Sep, followed by Tai Chi Hero 太極２　英雄崛起 on 25 Oct and Jackie CHAN 成龍's Chinese Zodiac 十二生肖 on 20 Dec.

Three yet to be announced films will also be presented in IMAX format.

The new deal was announced by IMAX Corp CEO Richard GELFOND (pictured right) and Huayi's president James WANG Zhonglei 王中磊 (pictured left) at Beijing's CBD Wanda IMAX Theater yesterday.

[GeneChing]

I wish they left that line in the film.

Black Widow was the best thing in tA. Must have been that Semir outfit.

China big on product placement in films
Los Angeles Times
Published 5:42 p.m., Friday, September 14, 2012



Hollywood movies regularly showcase American brands such as Ford, Coca-Cola or Apple. But recent U.S. films and TV programs have begun enjoying product-placement deals from half a world away: China.

Recent episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" have featured Shuhua Milk, made by the Chinese dairy giant Yili. "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" featured Shuhua and products from Chinese clothing company Meters/Bonwe, computer maker Lenovo and electronics company TCL, which will also be a marketing partner on "Iron Man 3." In "Iron Man 2," Chinese clothing line Semir, an official sponsor of the movie, provided the outfit for Scarlett Johansson's character, Black Widow.

In most cases, the primary goal isn't to woo American consumers. Instead, the Chinese firms hope that their presence in Hollywood productions will resonate with Chinese viewers. "The Big Bang Theory," for instance, does not air on TV in China, but has drawn as many as 18 million hits on domestic video sites.

"Chinese consumers are wowed when they see Chinese brands in American media," said Janie Ma, entertainment marketing director at Ogilvy Beijing, which represents Lenovo. "It polishes the brands' local image."

China is calling on Hollywood product-placement experts for help. Norm Marshall, a Burbank maven of Hollywood product placement, set up the "Transformers" promotion for Lenovo, even creating a character named Brains with director Michael Bay specifically for Lenovo. (The character transformed into a Lenovo computer.)

For years, Chinese companies have paid to include their brands in Chinese films, sometimes subsidizing as much as 30 percent of a movie's budget for the privilege. Chinese director Feng Xiaogang's film "A World Without Thieves" featured BMW, Nokia and Canon, among others.

The product placement doesn't always promote a strictly positive image. In the 2006 Chinese comedy "Crazy Stone," a can of Coke drops from the sky and smashes into a truck, which then crashes into a BMW.

But saturation in these films - coupled with a general belief that Hollywood represents a globalized cool - has led to a push into big-budget, English-language movies.

"We think Hollywood movies have great advantages in their quality, box office (reach) and commercial operation compared with domestic films," said Xie Wei, brand manager for Meters/Bonwe. "To a certain extent, Hollywood means high-tech, high box office, high quality."

Chinese companies are also looking for exposure, and with Hollywood films dominating the Chinese box office, a product placement in a big American movie ensures that large groups of people will see the goods.

Some early statistics suggest that the approach may be helping drive sales. In the 2011 film "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," a wacky Chinese scientist slurps a carton of Shuhua Milk in an elevator with star Shia LaBeouf. "Let me finish my Shuhua Milk," he said in the Chinese version, and the line became an online catchphrase in China. Sales of Shuhua Milk rose 12 percent last year.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," the previous film in the "Transformers" series, featured the Meters/Bonwe logo. In the first week after the film's release in 2009, Meters/Bonwe's Shanghai flagship store sold 10,000 Transformers T-shirts, Xie said.

"One of the key goals of product placement is to make a brand seem bigger than it actually is," said Morgan Spurlock, director of the documentary "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" and a product-placement expert. "And in a lot of places around the world, nothing does that better than being in a Michael Bay movie."

[GeneChing]

Nice piece on censorship.

Reel China: A crash course in different storytelling traditions
Reconciling disparate narratives in China versus America has become a challenge for filmmakers to appeal to Chinese sensibilities and censors.
By Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore and John Horn, Los Angeles Times
September 22, 2012, 8:00 a.m.

BEIJING — Every movie project involves a certain amount of negotiation, but finding middle ground proved no easy matter when writer-director Daniel Hsia tried to film "Shanghai Calling" in China.

To secure permission to make his story about a Chinese American lawyer relocated to the country's largest city, Hsia exchanged numerous screenplay drafts with China's censors. The government's film production arm, China Film, which co-produced the movie, wanted to make sure that Shanghai was depicted as an efficient modern metropolis, that locals were shown as "kind and hospitable," that the visiting lawyer comes to appreciate the country by the film's conclusion and that a plot about piracy would be rewritten into more of a business misunderstanding, Hsia said.

But the most complicated give-and-take focused on the movie's investigative journalist, and the character's heroic path. American movie heroes typically choose greatness, but their path to glory is often sidetracked by failings or doubts as the idol struggles with physical and emotional setbacks. Chinese movie paragons, on the other hand, normally have greatness thrust upon them, are physically and emotionally stable and rarely change over the course of a tale.

"American heroes go out of their way to search for trouble," said Hsia, whose movie has played several festivals and will be shown at the Mill Valley Film Festival on Oct. 13 and 14. A Chinese protagonist, conversely, "does what he does because it's his duty, it's his job — not because he wants to do it." Incorporating that fundamental difference, Hsia said, led to "another huge rewrite," and the project was subsequently approved.

For all of the concessions and changes he had to make, Hsia said, "I absolutely would do it again." The movie opened Aug. 10 in China to glowing notices and solid box-office returns, and Hsia said he expects the independently financed film to play in U.S. theaters next year. "I do feel I got to make the movie I wanted to make," he said.

Hollywood and China are separated by more than 6,000 miles, but the more significant gulf can't be charted on any map. There are vast, historical differences in storytelling tradition that owe as much to Confucianism as modern political sensitivities, and bridging that narrative chasm has become a burning challenge given that within the next few years China will become the world's biggest movie market.

Thanks to loosening quota limits and an explosion of new theaters, Chinese moviegoers have been patronizing American movies in record numbers. The returns for U.S. films have been so outsized this year that Chinese authorities in the last several weeks have tried to limit their popularity. The steps include blackout periods in which no imported films can be exhibited in China and releasing two Hollywood blockbusters on the same day to limit their upside, as Chinese exhibitors recently did with "The Dark Knight Rises" and "The Amazing Spider-Man."

Those punitive limits, which prompted the Motion Picture Assn. of America to complain to Chinese authorities and the Obama administration, are compelling American producers to search for more Chinese co-productions such as "Shanghai Calling," which are not subject to retaliatory exhibition restrictions.

In many cases, the East-West partnerships are relatively painless, as was the case with "Looper," a science fiction action story opening here and in China on Sept. 28, which originally was set in France but rewritten to unfold partly in China. But in several other instances, American filmmakers have had to undergo crash courses in Chinese storytelling traditions, which can be as complex as a hero's journey and as seemingly trivial as how dragons are portrayed.

"There is no clear definition of what you can do and what you cannot do — from both the culture aspect and the censorship aspect," said Chinese American director and screenwriter Anna Chi, the director of the HBO film "Dim Sum Funeral" and co-director of "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers." "Of course there are regulations, there are laws. Everybody knows you can't do [a movie about] Tibet, you can't talk about the Falun Gong," she said of the spiritual practice the China Communist Party has tried to eradicate. "But in terms of creativity there is no handbook. It's all project by project."

To qualify for co-production financing, productions must include a Chinese story element and employ some Chinese production staff. China benefits from the expertise of foreign filmmakers, while Hollywood, in addition to avoiding the retaliatory distribution tactics, gets access to Chinese funding and a bigger cut of box office receipts than a purely American production.

Backers of foreign films typically take home around 25% of cinema grosses, assuming they are among the handful of non-Chinese movies allowed into the country under an import quota. But the American makers of Chinese co-productions can collect nearly double that amount of ticket sales. Qualifying for a co-production, however, can be akin to untying a Gordian knot.

"Back home in the States you are talking to just one person: the consumer. Here, you are talking to two: one is the government, the other is the consumer," says the Beijing-based American Dan Mintz, chief executive of DMG Entertainment, the Chinese partner for "Iron Man 3," a proposed co-production that has not started filming in China but has commenced in the United States.

Chi's proposed co-production "Women Warriors of the Yang Family" ran into problems over the depiction of its protagonist in her script. The story follows the life of the well-loved Northern Song Dynasty general Yang Zongbao, considered a hero in Chinese history books. To make his character more nuanced and a bit more Western, Chi provided him with a foible. To save his loved ones, he must first do something they abhor: When captured by the enemy he becomes a traitor. In reality, he is secretly fighting for his family.

The Chinese producers and censors demanded that the twist must be scrapped.

"[They said] he is a historical figure, so we cannot put any shameful things to his name. Because he's so beloved they say a Chinese audience wouldn't accept it," said Chi, who has since rewritten the script.

It wasn't Chi's first brush with Chinese censors. In "Cicada's Summer," a fully Chinese-funded movie Chi directed and wrote, two scenes had to be removed after shooting was finished, one in which a schoolgirl has an abortion, the other where schoolchildren post photos on a social media site during class. Both were deemed detrimental to the image of the country's education system.

Sometimes, the governmental concerns might seem almost trivial.

Just before shooting commenced on 2011's "The Dragon Pearl," Australian writer-director Mario Andreacchio was forced to tear up his script, largely because of how he was depicting dragons.

The family film, the first official treaty Australia-China co-production, revolves around two teenagers' discovery of a live dragon in China. Andreacchio had envisioned a Western-style dragon: a fearsome, fire-breathing creature with connotations of evil. In China, however, dragons traditionally symbolize prosperity and power.

"We had to rewrite the screenplay — we were six weeks out from shooting, and I had to go back to treatment stage, which is pretty scary for any producer," Andreacchio said. "The only way we could continue was to unstitch the story and stitch it up again with changes so we could get filming approval." The benevolent Chinese dragon won, and the film turned into a modest Chinese hit.

Producer Pietro Ventani, who was a consultant on 2008's Chinese-American co-production "The Forbidden Kingdom" with Jet Li and Jackie Chan and is developing with director Rob Minkoff the proposed co-production adventure tale "Chinese Odyssey," said the screenwriting education is not a one-way street.

If Chinese filmmakers want their films to travel beyond the country's borders, Ventani said, they also must reexamine narrative rules, and understand why movies such as "Avatar," which grossed more than $182 million in China, do so well in Chinese multiplexes. In many Chinese films, Ventani said, "the accomplishment is given as much emphasis as the individual, which can be a problem because we are drawn to people stories." But Chinese society is changing rapidly, Ventani said, and its homegrown movies will soon follow, embracing more Western structures. "The Chinese audience is ready to embrace those kind of stories."

john.horn@latimes.com

Correspondent Sebag-Montefiore reported from China, staff writer Horn from Los Angeles.

[GeneChing]

I wonder if its a full-sized IMAX

Bona opens China's largest cinema
By Patrick Frater
Wed, 03 October 2012, 07:59 AM (HKT)
Exhibition News

Bona Film Group has opened what it claims is China's largest cinema complex in Tianjin, a city some 70km from Beijing that is a burgeoning film hub.

The company opened its Nongken Bona International Cineplex, which has fully digital projection systems and the largest IMAX screen in northern China. In a country where multiplexes are still modest-sized compared with Western ones, the company says: "The cineplex has 10 auditoriums, making it China's largest fully-commercial theatre complex."

The Nongken cinema is Bona's 15th complex and increases the number of company-owned and operated screens to 123. It has a seating capacity of 2,104.

"The success of premium releases in IMAX and 3D proves that Chinese audiences appreciate the enhanced experience of watching visually-impressive blockbusters in these highly immersive formats. As we continue to expand the geographic footprint of our theatre business, we are focused on developing theatres that provide top-of-the-line amenities," said Bona founder, chairman and CEO Yu Dong.

[GeneChing]

This is somewhat random, but it reminded me that I was leafing through the Guinness Book of World Records 2013 and they listed Karate Kid (2010) as the highest grossing martial arts film. I couldn't find that on their site however.

Chinese martial-arts films face competition in the West
By Liu Wei (China Daily)
12:58, January 11, 2013

Martial arts is still the best-received genre of Chinese cinema in the West, but none has reprised the glory of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and challenges await those ambitious enough to try their luck.

Earlier this year, Time magazine critic Richard Corliss listed Hong Kong director Peter Chan's Dragon (also titled Wu Xia) as the eighth-best film of 2012, praising it as "a sophisticated, stand-alone delight".

"It is exciting news," says Jia Leilei, a researcher of Chinese National Academy of Arts and expert on wuxia cinema. "But I'm not surprised. Action is a universal language, and the dazzle of Chinese martial arts provides strong, direct visual impact."

However, the old genre's exposure in the West, especially in the United States, may not be as wide as Chinese filmmakers expect.

"Most Chinese wuxia films cannot make it into mainstream theaters, but end up in cinemas in Chinese communities," says Stanley Rosen, professor of political science at the University of Southern California. "A few renowned directors, such as Zhang Yimou, can have their films released in art-house theaters, but most Chinese directors won't have any (US) theatrical release at all."

Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle was, according to Rosen, the most widely distributed Chinese martial-arts film in North America, opening with 2,500 screens in 2004. When Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon premiered in 2000, it was released in only 16 locations in the first week.

Some US distributors also shorten the films or change the music, which they think will make the film more acceptable by the audience.

DVD is an effective way for many wuxia films to reach their US audiences. Successful examples include Yuen Woo-ping's Iron Monkey and some old works of the Shaw Brothers.

A major reason why Chinese martial-arts films did not have a wide theatrical release in the US is the language barrier. It's a problem for all foreign films that want to be released in the country, where people are known for being parochial about film soundtracks.

According to Boxofficemojo.com, only two of the 20 highest-grossing martial arts films were made in Chinese, namely Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou's Hero. The top players are mostly English-language ones, such as Rush Hour 2 and The Karate Kid (2010).

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon represents a milestone, as well as a special case hard to copy, which sets a bar high for followers.

"Ang Lee was well-known, so was Chow Yun-fat. And the film's marketing techniques were very effective, including the promotion among the young hip-hop community and the attention to word-of-mouth effect," Rosen says.

The film was released first in art-house theaters, but its reviews were so overwhelmingly positive that it entered commercial theaters later.

Other filmmakers have tried to duplicate that success, such as Zhang Yimou, whose Hero was an immediate beneficiary, but none has achieved the same popularity and critical appreciation.

In addition to the language barrier and the US editing, the repetition of genre and visual style also play a hindering role.

While back in 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was something new to the US audience, they have seen too many imitations, both from China and the US since.

"Martial-arts films are still the most famous genre of Chinese cinema," Rosen says. "But since 2006, the impact of those films is much less, because not only Chinese films, but also many US pictures, are imitating them, too."

And few characters of the Chinese wuxia films are well-remembered by the Western audiences, Rosen adds.

"Characters in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon made a stir, but cinema-goers are mainly young people who find it hard to remember that well a Chinese film's characters 12 years ago."

One way out might be shooting the film in English from the very beginning, or making it a co-production, Jia says.

"But combining the Chinese martial arts into a story accessible to the global audience has a long way to go," he says. "While we have a universal language, we need to explore further on universal values."

Aki Aleong, president of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, is optimistic. "Wuxia is an easy way to go, because action sells. But Chinese need to make more films that touch people emotionally," he says.

"When more young Chinese filmmakers who study in the US and work in the community go back to China, they will look at filmmaking and marketing them in the West differently and do it more effectively."

[GeneChing]

Honestly, how hard is it for Hollywood to kiss China's ass? It's Hollywood. Billions of dollars on the line. It's not like we're talking films making major political statements. It's just entertainment flicks.

To Get Movies Into China, Hollywood Gives Censors a Preview
20th Century Fox
By MICHAEL CIEPLY and BROOKS BARNES
Published: January 14, 2013

LOS ANGELES — When “Kung Fu Panda 3” kicks its way into China’s theaters in 2016, the country’s vigilant film censors will find no nasty surprises.

After all, they have already dropped in to monitor the movie at the DreamWorks Animation campus here. And the story line, production art and other creative elements have met their approval.

The lure of access to China’s fast-growing film market — now the world’s second largest, behind that of the United States — is entangling studios and moviemakers with the state censors of a country in which American notions of free expression simply do not apply.

Whether studios are seeking to distribute a completed film in China or join with a Chinese company for a co-production shot partly in that country, they have discovered that navigating the murky, often shifting terrain of censorship is part of the process.

Billions of dollars ride on whether they get it right. International box-office revenue is the driving force behind many of Hollywood’s biggest films, and often plays a deciding role in whether a movie is made. Studios rely on consultants and past experience — and increasingly on informal advance nods from foreign officials — to help gauge whether a film will pass censorship; if there are problems they can sometimes be addressed through appeal and subsequent negotiations.

But Paramount Pictures just learned the hard way that some things won’t pass muster — like American fighter pilots in dogfights with MIGs. The studio months ago submitted a new 3-D version of “Top Gun” to Chinese censors. The ensuing silence was finally recognized as rejection.

Problems more often affect films that touch the Chinese directly. “Any movie about China made by outsiders is going to be very sensitive,” said Rob Cohen, who directed “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” among the first in a wave of co-productions between American studios — in this case, Universal Pictures — and Chinese companies.

One production currently facing scrutiny is Disney and Marvel’s “Iron Man 3,” parts of which were filmed in Beijing in the last month. It proceeded under the watchful eye of Chinese bureaucrats, who were invited to the set and asked to advise on creative decisions, according to people briefed on the production who asked for anonymity to avoid conflict with government or company officials. Marvel and Disney had no comment.

Another prominent film, Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi,” which was nominated last week for 11 Academy Awards, made it through the process mostly unscathed, but got some pushback over a line in which a character declared that “religion is darkness.”

“They modified the translation a little, for fear of provoking religious people,” Mr. Lee said.

Hollywood as a whole is shifting toward China-friendly fantasies that will fit comfortably within a revised quota system, which allows more international films to be distributed in China, where 3-D and large-format Imax pictures are particularly favored.

At the same time, it is avoiding subject matter and situations that are likely to cause conflict with the roughly three dozen members of a censorship board run by China’s powerful State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or S.A.R.F.T.

In addition, some studios are quietly asking Chinese officials for assurance that planned films, even when they do not have a Chinese theme, will have no major censorship problems.

The censorship bureau did not respond to a list of questions submitted by The New York Times seeking information about its process and guidelines.

Studios are quickly discovering that a key to access in China is the inclusion of Chinese actors, story lines and locations. But the more closely a film examines China, the more likely it is to collide with shifting standards, unwritten rules and unfamiliar political powers who hold sway over what can be seen on the country’s roughly 12,000 movie screens.

Mr. Cohen’s “Mummy” film, which was shot throughout China in 2007, was a historical fantasy about an evil emperor who is magically resurrected by foreign adventurers in 1946. The script was preapproved by China’s censorship board with only token changes — the emperor’s name had to be fictionalized, for instance. The censors also cautioned that the ancient ruler should not resemble Mao Zedong.

On reviewing the finished film, however, they found a deeper problem that “we didn’t have any way of seeing, or any way of fixing,” Mr. Cohen said: “White Westerners were saving China.” The picture was approved, he said, but its release was delayed until it had played elsewhere in the world, and pirated versions took a bite out of the Chinese box-office receipts.

For Americans, dealings with the Chinese censors are mostly a distant and secondhand business. Films are normally submitted by their Chinese partners, while various consultants in China handle the bureaucratic communications that lead to approval or rejection.

But those who shoot in China often assume that censorship officials have eyes and ears on the set. “There were points where we were shooting with a crew of 500 people,” said Mr. Cohen of his movie. “I’m not sure who was who or what, but knowing the way the system works, it’s completely clear that had we deviated from the script, it would not have gone unnoticed.”

continued next post

[GeneChing]

In a 2011 Web post, Robert Cain, a producer and consultant who guides filmmakers through China’s system, described having worked in Shanghai on a romantic comedy that went off script; the director included a take in which an extra, holding a camcorder, pretended to be a theater patron taping a movie on a screen.

The next day, Mr. Cain and others involved with the film were summoned to the office of a Communist Party member who told them the film was being shut down for its “naïve” and “untruthful” portrayal of film piracy. Assuming they had been reported by a spy on their crew, the producers apologized and managed to keep the film on track.

Studios are seeking out official co-productions, in which a Chinese company works with an American studio in financing and creating a film, because they can bypass the Chinese quota system and bring their distributors a 43 percent share of ticket sales, rather than the 25 percent allotted to foreign-made films.

Co-productions like “Kung Fu Panda 3” draw close monitoring by the censors at every step. Scripts are submitted in advance. Representatives of S.A.R.F.T., according to Mr. Cohen and others, may be present on the set to guard against any deviation. And there is an unofficial expectation that the government’s approved version of the film will be seen both in China and elsewhere, though in practice it is not unusual for co-productions to slip through the system with differing versions, one for China, one for elsewhere in the world.

Questions about how Chinese forces are shaping American movies are now playing out in the making of “Iron Man 3,” which is set for release on May 3.

Disney and its Marvel unit want “Iron Man 3” to gain co-production status, partly because the previous two “Iron Man” movies performed well in China. To work toward that distinction, Disney and Marvel made a deal last year for Beijing-based DMG Entertainment to join in producing and financing the film.

But they have taken a middle-of-the-road approach that appears intended to limit Chinese meddling in the creative process. A finished script was not submitted for approval and the companies have not yet made an application for official designation as a co-production. Rather, they are trying to show a heightened sense of cooperation in hopes the government will approve the status once that application is formally made in the spring.

The producers made a presentation to censors early in the process, describing broad strokes of the story, the history of other Marvel and Disney movies, and plans to integrate Chinese characters into the movie.

That won a conceptual sign-off for the film, which is being directed by Shane Black. Next, bureaucrats were invited to the set and were able to meet the star, Robert Downey Jr.

Hollywood executives are only now becoming familiar with the censorship board and its workings. A recent count by one of their advisers found that the board has 37 members, including representatives from government agencies and interest groups, like the Communist Youth League and the Women’s Federation, along with filmmakers, academics and professional bureaucrats.

At the top of S.A.R.F.T. is Cai Fuchao, a recent member of the Communist Party Central Committee. In a previous municipal post in Beijing, he was widely reported to have policed Web sites for banned material with the help of 10,000 volunteers, and to have joined in a roundup of a million illegally published books in 2004.

In 2008, after an uproar over the release of Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution,” whose story of wartime love and collaboration caused unease even after sex scenes were deleted, written censorship guidelines were circulated in China, in what filmmakers there took to be a crackdown.

Some of the prohibitions were broad, barring violations of the fundamental principles of the Constitution and the harming of social morality. Others were more pointed. Disparagement of the People’s Liberation Army and the police were banned, as were “murder, violence, horrors, ghosts, demons and supernaturalism.”

In all, the standards would appear to clash with almost any American film, other than, perhaps, the PG-rated animated fare of a DreamWorks Animation. (Even “Kung Fu Panda” provoked objections by some Chinese, who saw the lead character as profaning a nationally revered animal.)

But some who have dealt with S.A.R.F.T. say the censors are often pragmatic, and appear to walk a line between the demands of viewers, who want more global fare, and those of politicians, who are out to protect the status quo.

For example, 20th Century Fox managed to get “Life of Pi” through with only the modification of the “religion is darkness” line, despite the movie’s spiritual themes — which tread close to a prohibition against the preaching of cult beliefs and superstitions — and the earlier trouble over “Lust, Caution.”

For Americans, the hard part is knowing what might suddenly cause trouble — initial approvals notwithstanding. In 2009, Sony Pictures and its partner, the China Film Group, submitted their script for “The Karate Kid” to China’s censors, and dutifully changed parts of the story to suit them. But the finished film was rejected, according to people who were briefed on the process, essentially because film bureaucrats were unhappy that its villain was Chinese.

After negotiation, 12 minutes of the film were cut, and it was released in China, though later than intended.

Some filmmakers here suggest that impositions by the China censors are similar to the restrictions imposed by a ratings system administered by the Motion Picture Association of America. But Joan Graves, the chairwoman of Hollywood’s ratings board, insists otherwise. “We’re the only major country with a ratings system that does it on a voluntary basis,” she said.

Steven Soderbergh, whose film “Contagion” was shot partly in Hong Kong, said the participation of China’s censors simply added to the chorus of input that surrounds every big-budget filmmaker.

“I’m not morally offended or outraged,” Mr. Soderbergh said. “It’s fascinating to listen to people’s interpretations of your story.”

Hollywood just needs to be a little smarter, a little more sensitive, and not make films like Red Dawn if they want that China market.