Industry feud
Chinese director Feng Xiaogang’s ‘ I am not Madame Bovary’ dragged into Huayi- Wanda spat
After months of drama and a major delay, renowned Chinese director Feng Xiaogang’s I am
not Madame Bovary finally hit cinemas in the Chinese mainland on Friday.
The film topped that day’s box office, earning more than 70 million yuan ($ 10.1 million) to become the highest debut for a domestic film in November, according to a report from the Xinhua News Agency on Sunday.
In addition to its commercial success, the film also caused a stir in China after the director posted an open letter to Wanda Group Chairman Wang Jianlin, China’s richest man, on Sina Weibo that same day.
The letter is written in the voice of Pan Jinlian, one of China’s most famous fictional adulteresses, as a nod to the film’s Chinese title Wo bushi Pan
Jinlian ( lit: I am not Pan Jinlian). In the letter, Pan complains that Wanda Group cinemas allotted the film a disproportionately smaller number of screens compared to other cinema chains.
According to a West China Metropolis Daily report on Friday, Bovary debuted on 39.3 percent of screens in the mainland, the highest percentage of screens for any film that day, with Marvel’s Doctor Strange coming in at No. 2 around 15 percent. However, taking only Wanda cinemas into account, the film only showed on 10.9 percent of screens, ranking fourth behind Doc
tor Strange, The Warriors’ Gate and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.
Butting heads
This is not small matter for a film as the Wanda Group owns the biggest cinema chain in the mainland with 316 cinemas and 2,700 screens. A lesser percentage of screenings is sure to influence a film’s final box office.
Wang’s ambition goes far beyond being the king of the Chinese film industry. His company has also been taking aim at Hollywood.
In 2012, Wanda acquired AMC for $ 2.6 billion; in January of this year, the group bought Legendary Pictures for $ 3.5 billion; and in October, it acquired yet another Hollywood company, Dick Clark Productions, for $ 1 billion.
“A small company named Huayi once stole a brick from your wall to save itself,” the letter writes, seemingly confirming a long- rumored feud between Huayi Bros, the studio behind Bovary, and Wanda, two giants in China’s movie industry.
This spat between the two giants goes back to February of this year.
No longer the shining jewel of the industry it once was and looking to build itself back up again, Huayi poached Ye Ning, a core member of the Wanda team, from the group.
Ye had been with Wanda for about 15 years. During his time there, not a single Wanda film had failed to turn a profit. Additionally, Ye led Wanda’s purchase of Legendary Pictures and Wuzhou Film Distribution, one of China’s largest film distributors.
The news of Ye’s departure to Huayi, where he is now a vice president, shocked the industry, leading to rumors that Wanda would “ban” all Huayi films from its cinemas.
Although no ban has come to pass, Huayi films certainly have received a cold shoulder at Wanda cinemas.
Huayi animated film Rock Dog, directed by renowned singer Zheng Jun, and comedy When Larry Met Mary both had a lower percentage of screens in Wanda cinemas compared to other cinema chains.
Although this lessened screen presence could be explained by the mixed reviews the films received, Bovary is a highly anticipated, international award- winning film with an A- list cast. This lack of respect toward his film by Wanda is something that Feng just couldn’t bear.
“Huayi Bros is actually a little frightened. Why? Because Huayi doesn’t have cinemas, but Wanda has 13 percent of them. They [ Wanda] have already arranged for two [ Huayi] films to have screening times lower than the market average,” Feng said at a press conference for the film in Shanghai on Saturday, according to a report from online media site thepaper. cn.
Feng continued, saying that Huayi may be afraid to confront Wanda over this issue, but since the feud has started to affect his film, he is not afraid to deal with the situation.
Tough road
Although Bovary has won awards overseas at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, it didn’t have an easy time getting into cinemas back home.
Originally the film was slated for release on September 30 to take advantage of the National Day holiday period, but the release date was later delayed to November 18.
While the film’s screenwriter Liu
Zhenyun explained in a people. com interview on September 21 that the film was delayed because “Feng wanted to reedit the film to make it funnier,” some industry insiders suspect that it may have been because the film failed to pass China’s censorship review.
The film, shown in an innovative circular format, follows the story of Li Xuelian, a village woman who spends decades dealing with government bureaucracy to bring a lawsuit against the ex- husband who wronged her.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but few women have been as determined to exact retribution as the heroine of this film,” writes the Toronto International Film Festival’s review of the film.