Chinese films reaching out to global audiences

New Jason Statham movie is the latest collaboration between China, Hollywood

Jason Statham, the action star of movies including Furious 7, will play the lead in a project backed by China’s Road Pictures in the latest example of how the country’s filmmakers are reaching out to a global audience.

Statham will play a British expatriate in Hong Kong, on the run with a female Chinese agent, the producers said Friday in a statement.

The untitled movie is written by Kurt Wimmer, whose credits include Total Recall and Point Break.

Road Pictures, based in Beijing, is among a growing number of Chinese filmmakers forging collaborations in Hollywood to expand beyond their local market, which is forecast to become the world’s biggest by 2020. That’s positioning firms in the country to take on projects aimed at a global audience in a business now dominated by U.S. studios.

“The story is going to be a very global film,” Gongming Cai, founder of Road Pictures, said in an interview. “Jason wants to make a big film for a Chinese audience. He is very, very popular in China.”

Road Pictures will also make productions for the Chinese market, and is working on an English-language TV series for the U.S. market that is based on a Chinese classic, Cai said. “Our main focus is learning from Hollywood.”

The past year has seen some of China’s biggest media companies, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Huayi Brothers Media Corp., invest in U.S. films. This past summer Alibaba invested in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.

The Statham picture begins shooting next year in China and in Europe.