cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16376450
cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16376448
Hollywood blockbusters have dominated international box offices for decades, but in recent years, they have lost luster in the largest movie market outside the U.S. — China.
Walt Disney Co.'s latest film, "Deadpool & Wolverine," has taken the world by storm since its release on July 22, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. But it has failed to replicate that success among Chinese moviegoers.
While the Marvel superhero sequel made a respectable $57 million in its first 20 days in China, a locally produced comedy-drama, "Successor," made six times as much in the time period, according to data from maoyan.com.
Released on July 16, "Successor" continues to thrive in Chinese theaters. As of Monday, it had grossed over $439 million to cement itself as China's third most-watched movie of the year. "Deadpool & Wolverine" languishes at number 15.
A hit Hollywood franchise screened in China, especially one under Marvel, would be almost certain to rank higher in the box office prior to 2020. For instance, Avengers: End Game was China's third most popular movie in 2019.
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"China learned all they could from Hollywood. Now they make their own big-budget blockbuster films with good special effects, and even good animated films ... They don't need Hollywood anymore," Rosen, who specializes in Chinese politics, society, and film, told CNBC.
Meanwhile, Chinese films like "Successor" have a major home-field advantage.
"The Chinese audience, mostly young people, want stories they can resonate with ... films that relate to things happening in China in one way or another," said Rosen.
Successor matches that description, with the film touching upon themes of child-raising, education and upward mobility, tailored specifically for the domestic market, according to Emilie Yeh, Dean of Arts at Hong Kong's Lingnan University.
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Aside from films that are culturally relevant and relatable to the Chinese market, nationalistic and patriotic movies have also become increasingly popular.
China's top-grossing movie of all time is 2021's "The Battle at Lake Changjin," which depicts a battle between the North Korea-allied Chinese People's Volunteer Army and U.S. forces during the Korean War. It's followed by "Wolf Warrior 2," a 2017 film about a patriotic Chinese action hero battling corrupt forces overseas.
This patriotic streak has gone hand in hand with increased Sino-U.S. tensions and the 'decoupling' of the world's two largest economies.
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The Chinese Communist Party takes an active role in developing and overseeing the local film market, as well as deciding how many foreign movies are screened in the country's theaters.
In 2012, then-vice President Xi Jinping and Joe Biden signed an agreement to increase Hollywood's access to China. This eventually led to a 34-title quota for U.S. movies to be distributed by a Chinese state enterprise under a revenue share model. Approved movies also had to pass through China's strict censorship policies.
When Xi became president, he put the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party in charge of regulating and overseeing films.
As per local media reports, China Film Co. had a role in producing "Successor." The company was started by China Film Group Corporation — linked to Beijing's propaganda department — and other entities.
According to Lingnan University's Yeh, while "Successor" is a great movie with a good script, it still benefits massively from distribution, promotion, and "blessings" from the state.
Deadpool & Wolverine falling behind in China is the least surprising thing possible, because even aside from the quality (I think it was okay but noticeably worse than the pretty enjoyable previous two), the movie is constantly making self-referential humor about the Disney acquisition of Fox (plus the MCU itself and various actors) and the plot revolves around characters from a bunch of different movies from ages ago, a lot of which I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even release in China to begin with
I think a lot of what made the first two Deadpool movies work was that even though they were in the existing X-Men movie universe, they were pretty standalone and you only needed to know the very basics of what X-Men is (there's superpowered people called mutants, they're discriminated against in society, there's a school that's a safe haven for them that has a superhero team called the X-Men)
Meanwhile, this movie is extremely reliant not just on having watched at least some X-Men movies as well as multiple unrelated Marvel film adaptations, but also movies and a Disney+ show from the MCU, you gotta be a hardcore Marvel movie fan to even understand it
...Also it's absolutely rich that the writer of this article is so concerned over Chinese films having ties to the state when basically every American blockbuster is directly involved with the military lmao