China banks on to expand its film industry
EPIC fantasy film The Great Wall, which cost at least $150 million to make, opens with Matt Damon fleeing on horseback through red stone formations in northwest China. A snarling swarm of razor-toothed green monsters is hot on his heels.
One fast plot twist later, he stands atop a monumental stone wall, one guarded by thousands of Chinese warriors in dazzling uniforms. Cut to generals with furrowed brows fretting in Mandarin as the monsters come tumbling over a hill. Will their megastructure do its job? The same question, more or less, faces The Great Wall as it begins its global release. The movie, filmed entirely in China, was engineered not just as escapist entertainment but also proof the Chinese film industry can serve up global blockbusters too – that event films can rise in the East and play in the West.
The last Chinese-language film to become a breakout hit in North America was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which awed with its martial arts and stunt work and took in a surprising $180 million in 2000, after adjusting for inflation.
“If this doesn’t work then I don’t know what will,” said Stanley Rosen, a professor at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute, who has studied China’s efforts in recent years to emerge as a moviemaking superpower.
“The film addresses a lot of the previous issues that China has faced as it’s tried to internationalise its film industry, like language and the lack of internationally known stars.” The Great Wall passed its first test. Released in Chinese cinemas on Friday, the movie collected a strong $67 million in tickets over its first three days. The film’s total after five days was $82 million.
“Step 1 went really well,” said Thomas Tull, chief executive of Legendary Entertainment, which produced The Great Wall with Universal TheGreatWall, Pictures, China’s Le Vision Pictures and China Film Group. “Given market conditions, I feel like it was a big success,” Tull added, noting that the Chinese box office has lately been in a funk, with growth slowing sharply, partly because of a glut of fantasies.
Even so, The Great Wall remains a long way from the box office threshold Legendary ultimately hopes to hit in China – $200 million or so for its full run – and some analysts were underwhelmed by the turnout given the marketing push the film received. Before its release, expectations for the film had become as considerable as the epochal structure for which it was named.
Marketing efforts included two trailers, three music videos, 60 online video ads and stunts in 260 shopping malls owned by the Dalian Wanda Group, the Chinese conglomerate that bought Legendary for $3.5 billion in January.
The crucial test lies ahead. The Great Wall arrives in North American multiplexes on February 17. Movie executives say prospects in the United States and Canada come down to one question: are ticket buyers ready to embrace a film that is very much Chinese, even if it does have an American star in a lead role?
“It’s daunting,” said Peter Loehr, a Legendary executive in Beijing and one of the film’s producers. “I do hope it works, but I don’t know.”
Trying to appeal to everyone often warps the result. Movie executives, citing past experiences, say that audiences leave thinking that something was off the mark, even if they aren’t quite sure what.
‘Additional scrutiny in US’
“The biggest challenge in the film was integrating the two cultures,” Zhang said in Beijing this month. “We knew it would not be enough to rely on the novelty of the film’s Chinese elements to attract Western audiences. So we spent a lot of energy and time working on the story.”
Part of the plot – the inclusion of a white hero – has incited controversy. Some critics, judging the film by its trailers, accused Zhang of giving Damon a part that should have gone to an Asian actor, a practice known as “whitewashing”.
In truth, the role was written spe- cifically as non-Asian. Damon was sought for the part because he is a proven box office star around the world, including in China.
“There are five major heroes in our story, and he is one of them – the other four are all Chinese,” Zhang said when the outcry erupted online in August.
The Great Wall will attract additional scrutiny when it arrives in the US because it comes as some lawmakers question China’s increasingly aggressive efforts to use movies to promote itself. But the movie, if successful, could foster more collaboration between Chinese and American filmmakers.
It qualified under Chinese rules as an official “co-production”, a coveted governmental status that entitles non-Chinese film companies to a greater share of ticketing revenue.
American studios have struggled to meet the co-production requirements, which mandate the inclusion of “Chinese elements”, a nebulous umbrella term that touches on everything from the film’s financing to its casting, story line and shooting location.