How a Sylvester Stallone film unlocked door to China market for smaller foreign films
Big foreign studios split the profits with Chinese partners on just 34 films a year, leaving Chinese distributors to gamble on buying rights to show other foreign films – deals that can pay off handsomely or leave them with a loss
Chinese film authorities’ annual “domestic movie protection month” – which this year fell between July and the end of August – is finally over. After a blackout that contributed to Wolf Warrior 2 ’s unhindered run into the record books (taking 5 billion yuan [US$765 million] at the box office in its first month), foreign productions held back from making a summertime splash are landing in Chinese multiplexes.
Leading the charge was Warner Brothers’ Dunkirk , which arrived on Chinese shores on September 1 and swept everything before it, with takings of 259 million yuan during its first week; followed by Sony-Columbia’s Spider-Man: Homecoming on September 8 and then, on September 15, 20th Century Fox’s War for the Planet of the Apes. The doors will shut on big Hollywood productions once again in the run-up to the profit-laden and patriotic week-long window surrounding National Day, on October 1.
Beyond the blockbusters, however, a diverse smattering of lesser foreign films are making lower-profile debuts in Chinese cinemas this month: Japanese anime A Silent Voice, Mexican-funded animation Monster Island, Spain’s Contratiempo and Irish production Pursuit.
These smaller-scale imports – most of which have been produced and handled by outfits outside Hollywood’s traditional “Big Six” studios – are not expected to achieve enormous success in China. But it is through these releases that we can gauge how the Chinese film industry – and its regulators – are positioning themselves to deal with the international players trying to expand their toehold – and box office takings – in the country.