iQiyi, the ‘Netflix of China’, sees opportunities as Chinese audiences move increasingly away from Hollywood fare to embrace local content
- China’s box office was the world’s second largest at US$8.73 billion in 2018, only behind the US
Back in 2011, Chinese streaming site iQiyi paid for the rights to Transformers: Dark of the Moon, betting that the Michael Bay-directed Hollywood blockbuster would help jump-start its efforts to attract fee-paying viewers. The robot flick sputtered.
Three years later, Beijing Love Story, a local film about five pairs of lovers, helped iQiyi sign up its first five million paid subscribers. Since then, Chinese hits like Wolf Warrior, The Wandering Earth, Operation Red Sea and Detective Chinatown have convinced iQiyi chief executive Gong Yu that the future lies in original local content.
“We want to make original films one of our top priorities in the coming two to three years,” Gong, 51, said in a recent interview in Beijing. “With the slower growth in China’s box office, lower attendance rates at cinemas and the limited options of movies for the country’s cinema-goers, we think the timing for us to make a change in the movie industry has arrived.”
The company, China’s biggest streaming company by subscribers, announced a plan this month to invest in six films in 2019, each with a budget of between 20 million yuan (US$2.9 million) and 50 million yuan. Spending may be increased in the future if the plan proves successful. iQiyi was behind the production and distribution of the popular variety show The Rap of China as well as the hit period drama The Story of Yanxi Palace.
The move to promote local content is borne out by the numbers. Domestically produced films accounted for 62 per cent of China’s total box office takings in 2018, compared with 48.5 per cent in 2012, according to data from the State Film Administration.