04 Jan What Hollywood Thinks about China

Hollywood's obsession with China was a major theme of 2014. China represents the second largest film market in the world and has become a major market focus for numerous big budget American movies. It has also emerged as a bit of an enigma as Hollywood tries to second guess what the Chinese want. To Hollywood, the model for dealing with China going forward is the massive success of Transformers: Age of Extinction in its Chinese release. In the Hollywood master plan, China simply becomes a major market and financial backer for all things Hollywood. But like the old joke about two Hollywood moguls-Enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think about me?"-certain factors get in the way of Hollywood's one-way-street strategic plans. Things like, China's tight control over the release of foreign movies every year; the sometimes slow payment process; the social and political concerns of the Chinese government and their censorship powers;. as well as the very real differences in film sensibility between American and Chinese audiences.