Speaking at the Shanghai International Film Festival\u2019s industrial forum, film company chiefs call for officials and peers to fine-tune industrial norms.<\/p>\n
China might now boast the world\u2019s most enthusiastic financiers and audiences for movies in the world today, but the country\u2019s leading film executives are showing no signs of complacency \u2013 some of them are calling for further improvements in industrial norms so as to \u201cmake the cake bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking at a series of panels at the Shanghai International Film Festival Forum on Monday, some of China\u2019s most high-profile movie moguls are calling for measures which could ramp up the system, ranging from demands to cut down the tax bill for film companies, to pleas for their colleagues to consolidate diversified slates and market them with precise audiences in mind.<\/p>\n
Yu Dong, CEO of the Beijing-based but Nasdaq-listed Bona Film Group, said the Chinese government is keeping up tax rates which are too steep to allow for development in what he described as a \u201ccultural industry with special characteristics and qualities.\u201d
\nWhile painting an aggressively upbeat picture of the future of the Chinese film industry \u2013 which, he said, will earn a record-breaking $35.9 billion (22 billion yuan) this year to be on its way to surpass that of the US by 2018 \u2013 he complained about the authorities\u2019 legal requirements to take five per cent of a film\u2019s box office revenue in addition to the profits tax film companies have already paid.
\nHe also said mainland Chinese filmmakers might be facing an uphill struggle in cashing in on the ever louder ringing tills too, saying how he sees \u201clocal\u201d productions as taking up half of total earnings in the future \u2013 but with that gross shared by co-productions with Hollywood and also film companies from Hong Kong and Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a subsequent panel, Le Vision Pictures\u2019 CEO Zhang Zhao said financiers and producers eyeing co-productions should reflect on whether these projects could attain \u201cmultilateral co-operation between markets and audiences\u201d from the source countries of the funding.
\n\u201cWhat is your main target audience? How will your find a local marketing company which could help you reach that demographic [in the country of the co-producers]? It\u2019s only after this that you could be sure what films you are to make, and how you are going to make them,\u201d he said. Quoting his experience in distributing The Expendables 2 in mainland China \u2013 the film took $54.8 million (336 million yuan) during its run last September, despite being released around the same time as The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man \u2013 Zhang said his use of social media in promoting the film among younger film-goers is a way to \u201clocalize\u201d co-productions.
\nMeanwhile, producers should also aim for diverse slates rather than simply following trends, said two other high-flying executives in yet another panel on Sunday.
\nEnlight Media CEO Wang Changtian said he was dismayed by people cashing in on the success of his company\u2019s recent box-office hits Lost in Thailand and So Young. \u201cAfter the two films were hits, I saw more than 100 titles being submitted [for approval from the Film Bureau] \u2013 and most of them are problematic premises,\u201d said Wang.
\nStill, he also stated that his company is pursuing a strategy of both supporting new directors and sticking to genre films \u2013 a reference, perhaps, to Lost in Thailand (an odd-couple buddy road movie directed by actor-turned-director Xu Zheng) and So Young (rite-of-passage romance drama helmed by Vicki Zhao Wei, the A-list actress making her directorial debut).
\nRen Zhonglun, CEO of the Shanghai Film Group, also said the key to success for Chinese commercial cinema is in the consolidation of genre movies \u2013 but producers should also look at how different projects could succeed in different ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, [Jia Zhangke\u2019s] Still Life wasn\u2019t a hit in China \u2013 I can now admit that actually the box office performance is not very good at all. But the film was well-acclaimed abroad and has won a lot of awards,\u201d said Ren, referring to how Jia won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2006 with the film.
\nShanghai Film Group has stuck with Jia ever since, and is one of the major backers for A Touch of Sin, the uncharacteristically violent social drama which secured Jia a Best Screenplay award at Cannes last month.
\nThe Shanghai International Film Festival Forum continues until June 20, with speakers at further panels and masterclasses including Sid Ganis, Oliver Stone and Tom Hooper. The festival itself runs until June 23, with its film market slated to begin on June 17.<\/p>\n
Source: https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/china-s-movie-moguls-call-569530<\/p>\n
Source: https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/china-s-movie-moguls-call-569530<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Speaking at the Shanghai International Film Festival\u2019s industrial forum, film company chiefs call for officials and peers to fine-tune industrial norms. China might now boast the world\u2019s most enthusiastic financiers and audiences for movies in the world today, but the country\u2019s leading film executives are showing no signs of complacency \u2013 some of them are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n