Six major US film studios have set their sights on mainland China, but they appear to know little about the market despite sending individuals to China two decades ago to discover and build an entertainment system similar to Hollywood, reports the Shanghai-based China Business News.
NBC Universal, the parent company of Universal Studios, announced in November last year that it will establish an independent office and pursue more co-productions in China, while Warner Bros has seen success in China by importing films such as the 1993 US thriller The Fugitive, and most recently the sleeper hit Gravity.
As the studios first tried to establish themselves in China many years ago, the paper interviewed a number of individuals about their experiences working in the Chinese market, as well as what they thought about Hollywood's past and future in China.
Peter Loehr, an American national, went to Beijing in 1995 to shoot films. He later established a studio called Imar Film in 1997 — China's first independent film company, which also operates in the marketing and distribution channels.
The company's first film, Spicy Love Soup, used five short stories to describe a man's relationship status during different periods of time. The movie was made on a budget of 3 million yuan (US$292,500) and released in 1997, earning 30 million yuan (US$2.9 million) at the box office.
Loehr continued to stay in China and concentrate on stories related to urban youth and cities. But he has found that the stories have become more and more limited.
Around the year 2000, the mainland Chinese market shifted its focus to big investment and big projects in the wake of the success of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou's Hero.
Loehr founded his own production company Ming Productions during this time. In 2006, Loehr became part of the management of the China branch of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency (CAA). But the move was too early as the Chinese film market did not really take off until 2009. Loehr began serving as CEO at Oriental Legends Media & Culture in April 2012. He told the paper that he was excited about the prospect of shooting a big budget in October.
Barbara Robinson was also one of first foreign nationals to work in China's film market, having worked for Sony in China for 11 years. She said that China was merely a cheap destination for filmmakers to shoot movies until recently when the country's film market began coming into its own.
Robinson was hired by Sony in 1998 to take charge of the Asian market and was made responsible for film investment and distribution. With Sony's distribution and promotion, Zhang Yimou's The Road Home won the Silver Bear Award at the 50th annual Berlin International Film Festival, while Zhang's Not One Less also won the Golden Lion at the 56th Venice Film Festival, the paper said.
Sony decided to pull out from China in 2005 because it did not see positive prospects for the Chinese market after a decade of investment. From Hollywood's perspective, Sony's income in the United States was generated from the box office, television copyrights and the release of DVDs, but in China, there was only the box office.
Hollywood's major studios have today modified their strategies in China from shooting local films to selling big budget films in the country in order to earn greater profits, and despite hitting some setback, there is still plenty of room for the companies to grow, the paper said.