> The China that tries to have trade both ways by forcing Hollywood to portray China positively just to get 50% of what they should at the Chinese box office?
What's this one about?
What's this one about?
- China has a "ministry of culture" which decides what foreign media can enter the domestic market, especially to play on the big screen
- Chinese domestic films enjoy what effectively is media protectionism
- Hollywood obviously wants a piece of that giant market
- What movies get approved/denied and for what reasons can get very arbitrary. So it comes down to a matter of trying to win favors of people deciding the approval process.
- Often this means shooting big scenes in locations in China, or portraying China in a positive light, or starring Chinese characters, etc. This effectively translates to "you can help us look good globally and we allow you to make money in our market".
I have no idea where the "get 50% what they should" came from, and I'm too lazy to look. But dealing with the Chinese government regulations is really just a quagmire of conflicts of interest.
*Edit: formatting
Hollywood complies by making films that please the Chinese government censors. A quick search will find a NY Times article about the head of Disney going to China to apologize about a film about Tibet, and promising that such a thing would never happen again. IIRC, there are stories that Hollywood gives Chinese government censors prior review of films before they are finalized, and edits them as instructed/requested.
When was the last time you saw a film critical of China? Showing China doing something bad? Complementary of the Dalai Lama?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2237717/Red-Dawn-rem...
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/08/did-you-catch-t...