China buys soft power with hard cash in Hollywood
Companies are snapping up US film studios, which all want a piece of the mainland’s booming box office. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, warn observers
With cash flowing faster than the Yangtze River, Hollywood is awash with expanding volumes of Chinese funding, but analysts are warning the film industry there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
The Beijing-based Wanda Group’s deal in January to buy US film studio Legendary Pictures finally confirmed the long-heralded emergence of the world’s second-biggest box office as a major player in Tinseltown.
The US$3.5 billion agreement is the largest cultural takeover by China, with American studios keen to capitalise on its burgeoning cinema market at a time when Beijing is pushing entertainment as a source of “soft power”.
Legendary, the maker of Jurassic World, Godzilla and the latest Batman trilogy, has grossed more than US$11 billion worldwide since it was founded in 2005, mostly with the kind of big-budget blockbusters popular with Chinese audiences.
It’s a win-win situation ... because the China market is really incredibly taking off and Hollywood has a real interest in that
“It’s a win-win situation ... because the China market is really incredibly taking off and Hollywood has a real interest in that,” said Stanley Rosen, a political science professor at the University of Southern California. It is an arrangement that benefits both sides financially, with movies becoming increasingly expensive to produce but the Chinese hungry for Western-made films.