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【中文标题】中国与好莱坞合作推出更多作品
【原文标题】China and Hollywood Team Up for More Co-Productions
【登载媒体】商业周刊
【原文作者】Frederik Balfour、Ronald Grover
【原文链接】http://www.businessweek.com/maga ... tions-09082011.html
中国大陆正在与西方的电影工作室合作，开发其自己的电影产业。
在明年上映的影片《环形使者》中，布鲁斯威利斯将率领一群暴徒到未来旅行。得益于北京的DMG娱乐公司支持，这个未来的场景被设置在中国。DMG出资制作这部影片的条件是，影片的场景要从法国转移到中国，还要有一个专门为中国女演员许晴量身定制的角色。经过这些变化之后，这部影片可以算得上是一部中外合作的产品，不用受这个国家每年进口20部影片的定额限制，还能让外国投资方赚取至少三倍的票房收入。DMG首席执行官Dan Mintz说：“我们迫切希望与一个潜力巨大的市场发生关联，这里的电影产业就像一飞冲天的火箭。”
《环形使者》是好莱坞在中国寻求中美合作大潮中的一个浪花，中国每年新增1400座电影院。2010年的电影《空手道男孩》由成龙Jaden Smith主演，由索尼、哥伦比亚三星和中影集团联合出品。福克斯探照灯公司和北京IDG影业正在联合制作《雪花与秘扇》。曾经参与制作2000年影片《卧虎藏龙》的香港人Bill Kong说：“每个人都想加入到这个大潮中。十年前，如果你的影片在中国有3百万美元的收入，你就会高兴得跳起来。今天，你的目标恐怕是1、2亿。”
据国家广电总局提供的数字，中国电影票房收入在去年上涨了64％，达到102亿元人民币（16亿美元）。尽管根据Mojo网站的分析，这只占美国每年电影票房收入106亿美元的很小一部分，但是对好莱坞来说，中国是一个潜力巨大的市场。Mintz说，到2015年，中国的电影院数量将达到目前6200家的一倍。
41岁的王忠军（译者注：应为51岁）和他的哥哥王忠磊在90年代中期拍摄了他们的第一部影片，喜剧《甲方乙方》。票房收入400万美元，他说：“这简直是一个重磅炸弹。”去年，任中国最大独立电影制作方华谊兄弟传媒CEO的王出品了《唐山大地震》，这部冯小刚导演的影片讲述的是1976年唐山地震的故事，票房收入1050万美元。
北京使用它的定额制度遏制外国文化的传播，同时提升其本土羽翼未丰的电影产业。上海复旦大学美国研究重心教授沈丁立说：“中国非常关注延伸自己的软实力，”合资影片“可以利用好莱坞的优势来实现其政治目的，推广我们的文化。”
DMG筹集了3亿美元的资金，帮助美国独立制作的影片变成合资拍摄的影片。为了得到这样的身份，影片必须由中国的媒体监管机构颁发许可证，它为影片的融资方式、拍摄地点、中国演员的比例都做出了详细的规定。而这样做的收益是，合资影片可以得到票房收入的47％，进口影片只可以保留票房的13.5％。4年前，Kong把《木乃伊3：龙帝之墓》撮合成一部合资影片，合作双方是NBC寰球影视和中国电影集团。影片在中国拍摄，李连杰和梁洛施都参与演出。Kong说：“这并不是一部伟大的影片，但是它在中国充分利用了美国的特许经营权。将来会有越来越多类似的现象出现。”
华谊的王最近与传奇影视创始人Thomas Tull达成合作意向，后者的作品包括《黑暗骑士》和《宿醉》，双方计划合作拍摄一部名为《东方传奇》的影片。拍摄地点在中国，目标群包括国际和国内观众，拍摄资金部分来源于向香港保华建业集团出售50％的股权所获取的2.2亿美元。曾经出资拍摄《牛仔和外星人》的西部好莱坞Relativity Media在8月14日宣布，出资1亿美元与华夏电影发行有限责任公司组建合资公司，在中国国内发行电影和电视剧。
找对合口味的作品并不容易。有些美国作品在中国大获成功，比如《阿凡达》狂吞了2.16亿美元的票房收入。与此相比，由华谊和迪斯尼在2010年制作的中国版本《歌舞青春》只获得了15.5万美元票房。王说，中国观众不喜欢音乐剧。
原文：
China and Hollywood Team Up for More Co-Productions
The mainland is using partnerships with Western studios to develop its own movie business
Bruce Willis’s mob hit man travels to the future in next year’s movie Looper. Thanks to backing from Beijing-based DMG Entertainment, that future is in China. DMG funded the production on condition that the location was moved from France and a role was written especially for Chinese actress Xu Qing. By jumping through these hoops, the movie now qualifies as a Chinese co-production, exempting it from the nation’s 20-film-per-year import quota and allowing foreign backers to keep three times as much in box office receipts. “We are trying to be relevant to a significant market,” says DMG Chief Executive Officer Dan Mintz. “The industry is growing like a rocket ship.”
Looper is one of a wave of Sino-U.S. productions as Hollywood looks to expand in China, which is adding more than 1,400 cinema screens a year. The 2010 remake of Karate Kid, starring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith, was produced by Sony Pictures’ (SNE) Columbia TriStar and state-owned China Film Group. Fox Searchlight Pictures and Beijing-based IDG China Media teamed up for Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. “Everyone is coming in to join the bandwagon,” says Hong Kong-based Bill Kong, who co-produced the 2000 hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. “Ten years ago, if you made $3 million in China, you would be jumping up and down. Today it’s more like one or two hundred million.”
Box office receipts in China grew 64 percent last year, to 10.2 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), according to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. While that’s a fraction of the $10.6 billion in U.S. receipts, according to Box Office Mojo, China is a huge potential growth market for Hollywood. Its cinema-building will more than double the number of screens by 2015, from 6,200 at the end of 2010, says Mintz.
James Wang, 41, and his older brother Dennis made their first movie, the comedy Party A, Party B, in the mid-1990s. It earned $4 million, “a blockbuster at the time,” he says. Last year, Wang, CEO of Huayi Brothers Media, China’s largest independent film producer, released Aftershock, a Feng Xiaogang film about the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. It made $105 million.
Beijing is using its quota system to prevent the spread of foreign culture and promote its fledgling domestic film industry. “China is keen on promoting its soft power,” says Shen Dingli, a professor at the Center for American Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University. Joint film productions serve “the political purpose to promote our culture and systems with Hollywood’s competence.”
DMG is raising $300 million for a fund to help U.S. film franchises qualify as co-productions. To gain that status, films must be licensed by China’s media regulator, which sets rules on the film’s finances, its location, and the percentage of Chinese stars in the cast. Among the benefits: A co-production gets to keep 47 percent of box office receipts, vs. as little as 13.5 percent for imported films. Kong turned The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor into a co-production with NBCUniversal’s Universal Studios and China Film Group four years ago. Filming took place in China, and Jet Li and Isabella Leong were among the Chinese actors added to the cast. “It wasn’t a great movie, but it utilized a big American franchise in China,” Kong says. “The time will come when there are more.”
Huayi’s Wang recently teamed with Thomas Tull, founder of Legendary Pictures, whose hits include The Dark Knight and The Hangover, to start a venture called Legendary East. The unit will make films in China targeting international and local audiences, financed in part through the sale of a 50 percent stake to Hong Kong-based Paul Y. Engineering Group for $220.5 million. West Hollywood-based Relativity Media, one of the financiers of Cowboys & Aliens, on Aug. 14 announced a $100 million joint venture with Huaxia Film Distribution to produce films and TV shows in China.
Getting the formula right isn’t easy. Some U.S. hits have struck gold in China, with Avatar grossing $216 million in ticket sales. By contrast, the Chinese version of High School Musical, made by Huayi with Walt Disney (DIS) in 2010, earned less than $155,000. Chinese audiences, says Wang, don’t like musicals.
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发表于 2011-9-19 10:44
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