In the nearly 80 years since Walt Disney released the world’s first successful feature length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the global animated movie business has been thoroughly dominated by American companies. Disney was the undisputed feature animation champion for decades, and then starting in the 1990s, Dreamworks Animation, Pixar (later acquired by Disney), Blue Sky Studios, Universal/Illumination, and Sony Pictures Animation entered the fray with generally positive, and sometimes spectacular, results.
No one outside of America has ever presented a serious challenge to Hollywood’s hegemony in animated motion pictures. Japan, the U.K., France and a few other territories have also had robust animation industries for years, but the audiences for their films tend to be mainly domestic, so the production companies based in these countries are limited in their financial opportunities. A picture like Asterix (France) or Doraemon (Japan) might generate over $50 million in theatrical revenues, but without lucrative global TV distribution arrangements, home video sales, toy and merchandising deals, theme park tie-ins, and the like, the companies that produce these films can’t generate the profits needed to compete in the international arena.
Recent developments in China suggest that this is all about to change. China’s central, provincial and municipal governments have been investing in animation for years, and slowly but surely these investments have begun to yield fruit. Technical and artistic capabilities in China are rising, and although there aren’t yet any domestic Chinese companies capable of producing a global animation hit, there are more and more films capturing larger shares of the domestic market.
And it’s a fast growing market, soon to surpass North America as the world’s largest, with a big, growing middle class. As the Chinese movie-going audience broadens both geographically into the third and fourth tier cities, and demographically to families with children, and as marketing to these audiences improves, domestic business opportunities for Chinese animation producers have mushroomed.
As Chinese animated films become increasingly able to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues at home, their ability to compete globally for talent and IP will increase. Top directors, writers and artists will go where the money is, and China is well on its way to becoming the global capital center, if not yet the creative center, for the world’s movie industry.
A films that is currently in release in mainland Chinese theaters offers a window into the future. The Monkey King: Hero Is Back is a 3D animated family film that has not only conquered the box office records of domestically made films, it has also far surpassed the results of every American animated movie ever released in China. Written and directed by Tian Xiaopeng, and produced by Zhejiang HG Entertainment Company, the picture has grossed $139 million to date, more than 50 percent better than the previous American record holder in China, Kung Fu Panda 2, and nearly $100 million more than the previous domestic record holder, Boonie Bear: Mystical Winter, which took in $48 million earlier this year. The Monkey King: Hero Is Back has demonstrated that a Chinese animated movie can earn as much in its home territory as a Hollywood animation can earn in North America.
In fact, domestic animation ought to be among the fastest growing segments of the PRC’s film business over the next 3-5 years. Since China’s film authorities allow only 5 or 6 Hollywood animated films to be imported each year as revenue sharing “quota” films, it will fall to locally produced features to drive most of the family market’s future growth. And there are signs that China’s animation houses are getting ready to play their part. Although China still has some catching up to do, the tide is turning with several new films in development based on screenplays by talented American writers, and funding and services from top Chinese animation houses. This combination of top global talent combined with Chinese money will soon present a competitive threat to America’s animation leaders.