Hollywood’s global business strategy, which counts on huge ticket sales in China for high-budget fantasies in 3-D and large-screen Imax formats, is coming unhinged....These Hollywood bastards shortchanged Americans and catered to a foreign audience that they looked down on as unsophisticated. And now the scheme has gone kablooey, like a predictable plot twist in movie aimed at dummies.
[E]xecutives and China watchers... suspect... a rapid evolution in the tastes of Chinese audiences, which are quickly turning away from the spectacles American companies have assumed they crave.
“I know what they don’t seem to want,” said Rob Cain, who runs Chinafilmbiz.com and is a consultant to producers and others doing business in China. “They don’t want the same old thing, over and over again, the action blockbusters with lots of explosions.”
Two big thumbs up for poetic justice!
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33 comments:
If you have been to a movie in the last 5 years or so.....that would be your fault.
I watched part of "Battleship" on TV last night. The bad part. Which meant the whole thing. I was so massively stupid I had to see the whole thing.
Plus Brooklyn Decker.
I'll bet China would like to see her again.
I would.
Once in a while I just love to wallow in shallow and stupid. Maybe more times than that.
Brooklyn Decker can do that to you.
Too smart for their own good again
They should put in lots of fire drills. The Chinese love them.
It's more complicated than the NYTimes relates.
In short, China remains a socialist country (now run by crony capitalists), and fiercely nationalist.
The Chinese government tightly controls what movies get released and when. State-run companies control the import and distribution of foreign films in China.
Foreign films are often blocked from being shown during peak viewing times (e.g., major holidays). Only 34 foreign features are allowed in Chinese cinemas each year, among the world's tightest quotas..
Rules are changed suddenly and arbitrarily. Films premieres have been pulled because they were feared to be too successful.
Many foreign films never make it to China. Those allowed in often have key scenes deleted.
Films are not allowed to be critical of China or the communist government.
The government grants special dispensation to‘joint ventures’ between Chinese and Hollywood studios. This demands a set amount of pro-Chinese cultural content, as well as employing Chinese actors. The Karate Kid remake with Jaden Smith as an American boy living in Beijing was an example. Scripts are literally run by Chinese censors, and at times dailies are reviewed for approval.
Expect more Hollywood collaboration in creating Chinese propaganda.
Big surprise.
We saw Oblivion over the weekend and were giving each other amused looks over the way each preview was more absurdly this-one-goes-to-11 than the last. We both groaned when we saw the Bruckheimer logo on The Lone Ranger FIRE SPLOSIONS FIRE SPLOSIONS and if you want a good giggle, look up the trailer for Fast and Furious 6.
" These Hollywood bastards shortchanged Americans " Isn't that what all progressives and their collectivist rubbish do ?
Too, funny how these haters of capitalism seem to be.....no, really are a bunch of greedy money grubbing a$$hats. Ha, who'd a thunk.
And, to reinforce an earlier comment, if you've been in a movie theater in the past 10ish years, you've supported this baloney.
Having been an avid Iron Man reader in the mid-1960s when the villain the Mandarin first appeared (he's also the baddie in the upcoming film), our capitalist hero Tony Stark fought him in Vietnam. He was Chinese and aiding the North Vietnamese.
What do you bet that in the movie he is of unterdeterminable central Asian ethnicity and certainly not Chinese?
This kow-towing (great word) to the Chinese is why that recent "Red Dawn" movie had the preposterous concept of North Koreans invading and conquering us, not the Chinese.
The last movie I watched at a theater was "The Kings Speech".
Maybe you need a Bastards tag
The design of automobile front ends with extra big Chrome grills and ornamentation is also blamed on the Chinese market's preference.
The golden rule is back: those who have the gold make the rules.
Hollyweird has been writing for the overseas market forever.
Think some of those God-awful Golan/Globus productions.
Think Rambo sequels(except maybe the last one).
That's why TV is better. The audience is technically smaller.
Check out Libertas Film Magazine
Reviews and posts about really thoughtful foreign and independent films.
A life spent trying to get through the entire Criterion Collection is a life well spent.
"The last movie I watched at a theater was "The Kings Speech"."
I can trump that... I think the last movie I saw in a theater was "Seabiscuit".
And yes, the Criterion Collection is a wonderful thing.
Hey, these Hollywood guys are the same clowns who gave us thirteen anti-Iraq war movies in 8 years of George W, with the output peaking, of course, before the 2004 election.
Each film lost money, but yet Hollywood continued to crank them out. Some of them, such as Redacted were supposed to be big productions by big name people. It, too, was a big dud.
I can trump that... I think the last movie I saw in a theater was "Seabiscuit".
For me, it's Titanic.
Ever been to the pirate Chinese sites? I think they have the films before they play here. Maybe that's why they don't pay to see them.
St. George said...
What do you bet that in the movie he is of unterdeterminable central Asian ethnicity and certainly not Chinese?
Using the example of "Sum of All Fears", they'll make the bad guy a neonazi or Tea Party member.
"Hey, these Hollywood guys are the same clowns who gave us thirteen anti-Iraq war movies in 8 years of George W, with the output peaking, of course, before the 2004 election.
"Each film lost money, but yet Hollywood continued to crank them out. Some of them, such as Redacted were supposed to be big productions by big name people. It, too, was a big dud."
Hey, maybe they were all bad films, (what are the 13 films, btw?).
Or maybe audiences prefer to go to the movies for escapism and films seen as "topical" are anathema to audiences.
Pogo,
Would you say that the Chinese government are National Socialists?
"These Hollywood bastards shortchanged Americans and catered to a foreign audience that they looked down on as unsophisticated."
Don't credit incompetence for malice. The Hollywood bastards simply run out of ideas. Their big mouth "stars" are revolting, have no class, no mystique. Their story lines are formulaic, their special effects are computer generated. What is there to see?
Are Hong Kong action movies still popular?
大象爆炸式的拉肚子
Oh, baloney. China wouldn't produce never ending kung fu flicks if they didn't like ever more of the same thing.
If they don't like the splody helicopter shows, its that they never liked them much and, sure, were just impressed by the novelty.
I heard somewhere that the favorite US show ever in China was never ending reruns of Family Ties.
"Hey, maybe they were all bad films, (what are the 13 films, btw?).
Or maybe audiences prefer to go to the movies for escapism and films seen as "topical" are anathema to audiences."
"Preachy" tends to equal "bad".
But I agree absolutely that people (and by people I mean "me") go to the movies to be entertained. The number of people who don't is equivalent to the number of people who are impressed by high-literary speculative fiction about ecological disasters at the same time they fret about sci-fi cooties.
The last movie I went to was The Crudes. (Krudes?)
It was better than ParaNorman.
This spring and summer will be Iron Man (again) and Star Trek and (squee) Pacific Rim and probably Oblivion... maybe.
I've got a tentative "date" to go with my friend and see GI Joe when it makes it to the dollar theater.
Misplaced Pants,
I saw Oblivion yesterday and also laughed out loud at the F&F6 trailer. Honestly, how stupid would you have to be to watch that shit?
I never cared for F&F... not even the first one or two. I mean, sure, it was entertaining but it really wasn't that great.
That explains why My Slaughter with Mao never got green-lighted.
Maybe we could put up J J Abrams as collateral for all those T Bills the Chinese have been buying.
Karma gonna getcha, ya don't watch out!
GO, Karma, GO! Get them Hollywoodenheads!
Who remembers the movie '2012'?
If you haven't, this is the official trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jDhMQqggpw
This is the trailer that will make you want to see it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW2qxFkcLM0
Hollywood really have very little creativity left: the home computer does their job for them.
China, for all the oppression of the citizenry, is in the internet age. You can see every half decent, and a lot of less than decent, Hollywood movies in about 6 to 12 months.
If you picked movies with unique(ish) plot lines, or a notable stride in movie making, you are probably down to 2 months or less.
The conclusion one would come to would be a less than stellar opinion of Hollywood.
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