Hollywood being short-changed by Chinese cinemas, audit finds
Operators found to have under-reported ticket sales of US films by 9 per cent last year
Chinese theatres under-reported ticket sales of US movies by 9 per cent last year, according to an audit that found operators in the world’s second-largest film market are short-changing Hollywood studios, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
The Motion Picture Association of America, representing the large US movie studios including Walt Disney and Comcast Corp’s Universal Pictures, hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct an audit as part of a US agreement with China setting the terms for imports of Hollywood movies. The people asked not to be identified because the findings are not public.
China has been cracking down on box-office fraud, approving fines to curb misreporting in the country’s booming cinema industry. Authorities allowed Hollywood to conduct its own audit as the two countries prepare to renegotiate a 2012 deal that gave US movie studios better access and compensation.
The audit was revealed by Bloomberg in June and had been expected to be completed in the third quarter. The results were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. China Film Group, the state-owned giant in charge of the import and distribution of Hollywood films, could not be reached on Wednesday.