Overseas movie bigwigs are "tentacles" to the Chinese film industry

Universal Pictures, the last "settled" domestic movie studio among the top six Hollywood movie studios, announced a few days ago that it will set up an office in Beijing. Up to this point, six Hollywood film distributors including Warner Bros., Paramount, Disney, 20th Century Fox and Sony have achieved their "fit" in the country. In recent years, foreign film bigwigs are "tentacles" to all aspects of the Chinese film industry chain, and the frequent entry of overseas capital in turn will affect the domestic movie market and how the impact?

Capital into China

To penetrate the domestic film industry chain

Although the major Hollywood studios' offices in China are small in scale and always love playing "latent guerrilla warfare", they are an important outlet for filmmakers to bring capital to China. If you think the Hollywood blockbusters are just content with earning box-office in the country, you're underestimating their strength. Beijing Business Daily reporter found that in recent years their figure is subtly shown in all aspects of the Chinese film market. Film investment, film and television production, theme parks and the expansion of theaters can be described as pervasive. "As long as it can make money, the film industry chain will go to participate in all aspects." Huang Xiaofei, executive vice president of Huaxia Film Distribution Co., Ltd. said.

When they first arrived, Hollywood studios first turned their attention to investing in domestic films. To Sony, for example, it has continuous investment, shooting and distribution of a number of domestic movies, many of whom have been critically acclaimed "Crouching Tiger", "big names", "my father and mother", "Kung Fu" and so on.

Xiao Yongliang said that in the United States, Hollywood's six major film companies are all media groups. Below the group have their own video companies, theaters and the media, you can hold up the entire industry. Therefore, the construction of the cinema has gradually been incorporated into the business landscape of Hollywood giants in China, naturally, it is also reasonable.

However, Hollywood giants, who are not yet familiar with the Chinese movie market, have come across quite a bit of resistance in trying to copy such an all-media model. In particular, the cinema expansion plan, halfway to "die". In July 2003, Warner Bros. first took the lead in Shanghai in building a movie theater called Yonghua Film City, which was also the first theater in China to be jointly owned by foreign investors after joining the WTO. At that time, Warner 49% holding, Chinese shareholders holding 51%. The shareholding ratio is set according to the WTO agreement. The agreement shows that the Chinese government allows foreign capital to enter the film industry, but foreign ownership can not exceed 49%.

While Warner Bros. was so depressed, SARFT introduced a new rule in September 2003 that allowed foreign investors to relax their shareholding to 75% in seven pilot cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Good policy warned Warner to hi, began to accelerate into the Chinese movie market. However, the good news was that the "Opinions on the Introduction of Foreign Investment into the Cultural Sector" promulgated in late 2005 canceled the pilot cities and forced Warner Bros to withdraw from the Chinese cinema. On the surface, the full withdrawal of Warner Bros. is caused by policy factors, but according to informed sources, Warner Bros. too much copying the operating mode of the U.S. cinema, and the greater contradiction between Chinese partners is the real reason for its withdrawal .

Cinema defeat, Hollywood giants and layout layout to find a new direction - the theme park. At present, the construction of Shanghai Disneyland, a joint venture between China and the United States, is proceeding step by step. In 2015, the park was officially opened. By then, Shanghai Disneyland will become the theme park with the world's largest Disney store and the world's largest Disney castle. In addition, Universal Pictures will also cooperate with BTG Group to set up Universal Film Theme Park in Tongzhou District of Beijing with a budget of 12 billion yuan and will officially start construction by the end of this year.

Increased competition

Domestic film and television companies need to take the initiative

The six Hollywood studios have set up offices in China one after another because China has become the world's second-largest movie market with strong box-office output. On the other hand, due to the near-saturation of the U.S. domestic movie market, Hollywood studios Implement overseas strategy. Xiao Yongliang told the Beijing Commercial News reporter: "Hollywood's six major corporations are the allies of the American Film Institute, through the Association has the US movie market divided well.Great Hollywood giants put up a huge barrier, despite being able to stop the invasion of foreign forces , But also limits their own space for development. "

In the opinion of the insiders, the "Hollywood Six" initiative stationed in China also started a contest on the brand-new starting line and will not have a significant impact on the Chinese movie market in a short time because there are still many problems to be improved local. From the forced stagnation of the aforementioned Warner Cinemas expansion, these Hollywood bigwigs are not familiar with China's extremely attractive but extremely sophisticated movie market and used to panning the Hollywood model. Precisely because of this, they not only need to inspect and understand the Chinese movie market, but also need a partner who knows China's national conditions.

At the same time, however, others expressed concerns about the "fit" of Hollywood film parties in China. Multi-parties predict that the import quota for 2017 will substantially increase on the basis of 34. Xiao Yongliang said that the six major Hollywood studios are already anticipating the changes that will take place in the market. The establishment of an office in China is actually preparing for market changes in advance. As a result, it is very necessary for them to set up permanent offices.

"In the long run, when quota quotas for import tablets are liberalized in 2017, there will be huge feedback from them in the communications, liaison, involvement in cinemas, investment in filming and even market share in recent years. In this regard, Xiao Yongliang suggested that "we can not always negative blocking, interception, keep in the face of the possible arrival of the" big escape ", domestic companies should make preparations as soon as possible, take the initiative."

Experts suggest that the powerful domestic film and television companies can suppress the unlimited expansion of their capital while learning the advanced production experience through filming with Hollywood studios. Small and mid-sized movie studios, on the other hand, can focus their efforts on segmenting and focusing on the development of multiple genres to get their own fixed audience.

Beijing Commercial Daily reporters Lu Yang trainee reporter laughs / Wen Jia Cong / comics

Reporter investigation

The oldest office in Beijing "lurk" for 18 years

Recently, Universal Pictures will set up an office in Beijing, a news, attracted the industry's great attention. Together with Universal Studios, which is about to keep up with the large force, the six major Hollywood movie distributors have now gathered in China.

According to Peng Kan, director of R & D consulting at Le Zheng Media, Universal Pictures is a bit slow compared to the other top five film distributors. Public information shows that Disney is the first Hollywood movie company to enter the domestic six major film companies, and in 1996 set up an office in Beijing, after all, has been in Beijing for 18 years of history. To learn more about the domestic offices of Hollywood studios, Beijing Commercial Daily reporters tried to get the contact numbers and addresses of the major offices in China by various means.

However, it is not easy to get this information. In the case of Warner Bros., Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox, for example, they neither found their contact information nor did they have a detailed office address in public, and Beijing Business Daily reporters determined the existence of their office through the latest recruitment news .

According to people familiar with the situation, although the influential Hollywood studios are influential, their offices in China are quite low-key. Often, there are only a few offices and at least one single office. Xiao Yongliang, executive director of Beijing Institute of Culture and Research Institute of Beijing Normal University, explained: "The China office is equivalent to a foreign agency. The establishment of this agency shows that daily routine and routine things are always present. They are watching the Chinese market every day."

"However, the six Hollywood studios do not just focus on the Chinese market at all times, they also make the office an important place to connect with the business and work hard to get on well with the local government and the movie company," adds Peng Kan.

Subsequently, the Beijing Commercial Daily reporter holding the last glimmer of hope, found in the Chaoyang District Wheat Street No. 37 Shengfu Building Disney's Beijing office, but was told that the office has long been moved to the Shangri-La Hotel. Finally, Beijing Business Daily reporters after several setbacks finally contacted Disney by phone at Beijing International Trade Office, according to the relevant person in charge, at present Disney has two offices in Beijing, mainly engaged in the development of business contacts and cooperation projects, serving staff A total of more than 20 people. However, when the Beijing Commercial Daily reporter said he was going to conduct an interview on the spot and ask for the detailed address, the person in charge did not want to disclose more information.