Hollywood must think bigger about China

A Chinese father and son look at posters of US and foreign films outside a cinema in Beijing. [Photo / Agencies]

With a few exceptions, Hollywood studios are moving far more slowly than Chinese companies in the world's second-largest movie market, said US producer Janet Yang, whose works include "The Joy Luck Club" and "Shanghai Calling".

Many studios, like Paramount Pictures with its "Transformers" franchise, have been taking steps to appeal to China's fast-growing audiences by hiring Chinese actors or featuring Chinese products in their films.

Others are doing co-productions in China and some, like Dreamworks Animation, have forged nascent partnerships.

But largely "the studios are not doing that much right now. They are feeling it out," said Yang, 57, who has built a career melding East and West since she advised on Steven Spielberg's 1987 movie "Empire of the Sun", shot partly in Shanghai.

"I've never seen so much talk about things with so few results. But that's going to change," Yang, named one of the 50 most powerful women in Hollywood by the Hollywood Reporter, told Reuters during a visit to China.

"It's two different systems trying to come together, so a lot of dating and few engagements and marriages but probably more on their way."

Despite an import quota, Hollywood movies have dominated China's box office - until that changed dramatically this year.

In the period from January to June, domestic films outperformed imported ones by 65 percent. That was a major reversal from the same period last year, when proceeds from imported films almost doubled those of domestic productions.

The stakes are high. Last year, box office revenue in China was $2.8 billion. In the first six months of this year, it hit nearly 11 billion yuan ($1.8 billion).