The Wall Street Journal-20080116-Chinese Cinema a Blockbuster Hit- As Box Office Grows- Hollywood Covets More of the Receipts
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Chinese Cinema a Blockbuster Hit; As Box Office Grows, Hollywood Covets More of the Receipts
HONG KONG -- The Chinese domestic box office grew 26% last year, as moviegoing becomes more popular and as Hollywood is clamoring for a bigger piece of the action.
Domestic box-office receipts in 2007, excluding the special territories of Hong Kong and Macau, hit $455 million, according to the country's film regulator.
Capitalizing on the trend, the nation's biggest movie producer and distributor, China Film Group Corp., is planning a domestic initial public offering this year, the company said on its Web site, aiming to become the first mainland film company to list.
Driving the growth, China is producing more of its own films than ever, some 402 last year. Two of 2007's top-grossing films, "The Warlords" and "The Assembly," were Chinese co-productions. Chinese films brought in $273 million from overseas sales last year, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or Sarft, announced late last week.
"We want the Chinese film industry to be of the same importance as its Internet and telecommunications industries, which play an important role in the world," Han Sanping, China Film's chairman, writes on the company's Web site. He says the company will use proceeds from its IPO to fund new movie theaters, which China badly needs, and to find new ways to cooperate with Internet companies.
Industry executives warn that the government's tight control over the media sector, along with rampant piracy, are holding back Chinese films from being more than a drop in the world-wide box-office bucket. In particular, American film companies argue that access restrictions both cripple their participation and slow the whole market.
Foreign films, mostly from the U.S., made up 46% of China's box- office revenue last year, and American movies made $158 million in China, up 38% from the 2006 total. China was the fourth-largest market in the world for last summer's American film "Transformers," after the U.S., South Korea and the United Kingdom. In China, the film took in $38.2 million.
Hollywood studios' take was a tiny fraction of the market, says the Motion Picture Association, because all imported films have to be distributed through China Film Group. In addition, only about 20 foreign films are allowed to be released in theaters in China each year.
An open market "would benefit everyone in the industry, from Chinese theater owners to employees in the industry, from the distributors to the Chinese public," says Mike Ellis, senior vice president and regional director for Asia-Pacific of the Motion Picture Association.
Last month, Hollywood executives accused the Chinese government of an all-out ban on American movies for several months. Industry regulator Sarft denied those claims and has since granted release dates for the coming weeks to films such as "The Pursuit of Happyness" and "The Golden Compass."
Another problem: China has no film-ratings system. Many movies either are banned entirely or are extensively censored before they hit the silver screen.
Censorship also sometimes brings Chinese film directors into direct conflict with the government. This month, Sarft banned the director of the award-winning "Lost In Beijing" from filmmaking for two years. The film showed the seedy side of Beijing. Sarft said it violated regulations on sexual content and participated in film festivals without Sarft's permission.
