“Titanic” Director Splashes Into China 知名导演卡梅隆进军中国
Hollywood’s growing love affair with China continues to steam ahead with word that James Cameron, director the blockbusters “Titanic” and “Avatar”, is setting up a joint venture in the city of Tianjin. Unlike the growing number of Hollywood companies that have flocked to China this year, Cameron’s venture won’t offer any mass-market products to consumers and instead will focus on supplying technology to Chinese filmmakers to help them make more 3D moves.
I personally like this strategy over some of the others we’ve seen so far, as it avoids directly making products for the sensitive media market by simply providing technology for other Chinese media companies. By comparison, most of the other ventures are looking to grab a slice of the fast-growing Chinese movie and TV markets — a potentially more lucrative area but also one prone to clampdowns by Beijing.
Let’s take a look at Cameron’s latest announcement, which will see his US company, Cameron Pace Group, launch its joint venture with partners in the port city of Tianjin near Beijing. (English article) The venture, the first overseas foray for Cameron, will initially demonstrate its technology by producing a documentary; but afterwards it will only work with other filmmakers to help them make 3D movies for the China market.
Cameron has good reason to like China, as “Avatar” is the country’s top grossing film of all time, taking in 1.2 billion yuan at the box office. “Titanic” has also been a huge success, earning a then-record 360 million yuan from its original release in 1998 and then an additional 900 million yuan from its 3D re-release earlier this year.
Cameron’s joint venture is just the latest in a growing number of similar moves by foreign media giants this year, with Disney (NYSE: DIS), DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA) and News Corp (Nasdaq: NWSA) all announcing major new China initiatives this year as Beijing looks set to finally relax its tight grip on the sensitive sector. (previous post)
On a broader level, China’s movie market has risen rapidly to become one of the world’s largest, with $2.1 billion in box office sales last year and the figure expected to grow to $5 billion by 2015. Despite a strict quota on their China sales, foreign firms still dominate the box office, accounting for around three-quarters of the market.
The foreign dominance makes Cameron’s joint venture look smart, since Beijing is eager to make its own film industry more competitive, which is clearly an aim of this new joint venture. What’s more, Beijing loves foreign companies that bring cutting-edge technology to China, which is what Cameron is doing. And lastly, by focusing on providing services to other Chinese companies, Cameron is avoiding the risk of falling victim to the kinds of politically motivated clampdowns that Beijing often launches against both domestic and foreign media companies from time to time.
Bottom line: James Cameron’s new 3D technology joint venture marks the latest Hollywood entry to China this year, in a smart move that limits its exposure to risk from Beijing media clampdowns.
Related postings 相关文章:
