China gets tough on fake co-productions
"The Expendables 2" no longer qualifies as a Sino-foreign co-production since a top Chinese film authority warned against fake co-productions during a seminar last week and vowed to firmly censor them, Beijing News reported.
Zhang Shao, the president of the film's Chinese partner Le Vision Pictures, confirmed yesterday that the film will be released in China as an imported movie.
"Even though 'The Expendables 2' carries Chinese investment and features Chinese actors, we didn't necessarily consider ourselves to be its co-producers and therefore didn't assume to enjoy co-production status from the very beginning," Zhang said, "We understand the authorities' concern and we will certainly abide by the policies and regulations."
Another Chinese invested blockbuster-to-be, "Looper," will hit Chinese cinemas on Sept. 28, but the film's Chinese partner DMG didn't immediately tell whether or not if they could qualify the movie as a Sino-foreign co-production. This new crack down by the Chinese film authorities will certainly cause them more headache in the future as they are also set to become the Chinese partner on that other highly-anticipated film, "Iron Man 3," which is set for release in 2013.
Zhang Pimin, Deputy Director General of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), said on last Thursday that authorities are very concerned about the "so-called co-productions" with foreign film studios.
The senior official said they have noticed the tendency for international co-productions to harm the local film industry. ""An American story [containing] one Chinese element and one Chinese actor - it is a disgrace they call it a co-production," he said.
China now imports 34 foreign films every year -- 14 more than before, but they do have to be in IMAX and 3D formats -- as Vice President Xi Jinping signed an agreement with the U.S. government in February to enlarge the import quota from Hollywood. However, co-productions are exempt from the quota and thus treated as domestic films.
But most important thing are profit shares. Under current regulations, Chinese domestic-made films and co-productions can divide their box office profits share with theaters 43 percent against 57 percent. But according to the U.S.-China film memo signed by Vice President Xi in February, the production studios of the imported film can get a 25 percent share (increased from a previous 13 percent). Still far less than the share a domestic-made or a co-production can get.
Although Zhang Pimin did not point fingers, the recently proposed co-productions such as "Cloud Atlas," "Looper" and "The Expendables 2" all have very little Chinese input and only star Chinese actors in supporting roles. Now the status of "The Expendables 2" has already changed.
According to the Provisions for Sino-foreign Cooperation in the Production of Films proposed by the regulator in 2004, Sino-foreign cooperation in films can take three forms.
The first is joint production, under which Chinese and foreign parties invest and produce films jointly. They share copyright, risk and the profits. The second one covers coordinated productions, where the foreign party contributes capital and undertakes filming in China and the Chinese party assists by providing equipment, locations and labor, as well as other services. The third one then is production by appointment, where the foreign party appoints a Chinese party to carry out the movie production in China on its behalf.
Zhang Pimin [File photo] |
The 2004 regulations do not specify however what proportion of the main cast or investment must come from China.
Zhang Pimin said the regulators would now require for Chinese investment to contribute over one-third of the total production cost, with one-third of the main cast coming from China and the film including scenes shot in China.
Such "so-called co-productions" are attracting funds from the Chinese market to the American one. Zhang said, "For one thing, a large amount of capitals flows to foreign markets; and secondly, those movies are actually the foreign imported films, which means this further increased the import quota and marginalized the presence of authentic Chinese domestic productions on the market."
Zhang Pimin said the Film Bureau under the SARFT will firmly censor the co-productions to see whether they are qualified as real co-productions or not. "All the criteria for an international co-production should be met," Zhang said, otherwise, they are not co-productions.
However, if all the criteria for co-production are met and as the Chinese took control of investment and cast, such a film may not appeal to global audiences, John Woo's longtime partner and friend Terence Chang pointed out as early as last June during the Shanghai International Film Festival.
"We have a China-U.S. co-production project called "Flying Tigers," a story about American pilots in China, " Chang said, "When I gave this script to American producers, they told me they didn't want so many Chinese people in there because American audiences wouldn't like it. I actually know what they wanted. They may film China's Great Wall, but what they want is to build a Great Wall to keep away aliens from another planet."
China's domestic film market has recently been seriously affected because the market was fully occupied by foreign blockbusters this year. By the end of June, China's box office reached 8.07 billion yuan (US$1.28 billion), a 41.7 percent growth over the same period in 2011. In addition, 379 new theaters and 1,664 new screens have been built, but in the end only 30 percent of revenues came from domestic productions.
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Date of Birth: Nov 11, 1988
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