Tag Archives: Film Bureau

Who is La Peikang and How Did He Get Here?

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La Peikang

By Robert Cain for China Film Biz

February 11, 2013

There’s a new sheriff in town and his name is La.

OK, that didn’t quite have the gravitas I was going for. The point is that China’s New Year’s holiday week is over and the dominant organization of China’s film industry, China Film Group, has a new Chairman, La Peikang (喇培康).

La’s appointment to the PRC’s top film job signals a new direction and some interesting potential changes in the years ahead, both for Chinese filmmakers and distributors and their overseas counterparts. Namely, La’s extensive international experience overseas and in China’s co-production bureaucracy point to a likely increased focus by CFG on international cooperation and expansion.

Variously described by those who know him as “serious,” “educated and academic,” “quietly effective,” “well-liked” and “outward looking,” La could scarcely be more different than his predecessor, Han Sanping.

In the role he held for ten years, Han Sanping was a hustler, a mover-and-shaker who presided over the massive rise of China’s film industry from its status as a tiny backwater with a mere 0.7 percent share of the global box office in 2003 to its emergence as the world’s most dynamic movie territory, with a 10 percent (and rapidly rising) share of the worldwide pie in 2013.

I remember the early days of his tenure when Han Sanping would show up in Hollywood unknown and barely acknowledged, begging for meetings with studio execs, agents, movie stars, anyone who would pay attention. Most dismissed him in those days as unworthy of their time, because China was so negligible as a territory, let alone as a potential source of financing. But Han’s “Baqi” (覇气) loosely translated as “lord’s air” or “domineering spirit,” drove him to oversee the incredibly rapid modernization of the Chinese market, with the construction of 16,000 new cinema screens and a corresponding 2,700 percent increase in domestic box office receipts. Nowadays, thanks largely to Han’s contributions, China is on everyone’s mind, and it would be difficult to find a serious agent or executive who doesn’t know his name.

Given the legacy that Han created, La will find that the tables have turned and that studio heads and movie stars will eagerly, if not desperately, court his favor. Those who meet him will experience a completely different breed of Chinese movie czar. In contrast to Han’s bulldog approach, La is a more sophisticated executive, a fluent English and French speaker who is apparently viewed by China’s leaders as the right person to lead their country’s movie business to maturity and, they hope, to increasing global influence.

Before his appointment was announced, few anticipated that La would be the one to win the top job. It’s not that he lacked credentials—he was Deputy Chairman of the SARFT Film Bureau, and he had previously run an important CFG subsidiary, the internationally focused China Film Co-Production Company. But other candidates were more in the public eye, perhaps because they were more effective at outwardly promoting themselves.

When it came down to it though, it was La’s connections, his political skills, and his perceived loyalty to his Chinese Communist Party bosses that ultimately allowed him to prevail. He was chosen for the job by the Party’s ultra secretive, extraordinarily powerful Organization Department (中国共产党中央组织部), China’s political king-making office. Richard McGregor of The Financial Times described the Organization Department’s status thusly:

“To glean a sense of the dimensions of the Organization Department’s job, [imagine] a parallel body in Washington…that would oversee the appointments of every US state governor and their deputies; the mayors of big cities; heads of federal regulatory agencies; the chief executives of General Electric, ExxonMobil, Walmart and 50-odd of the remaining largest companies; justices on the Supreme Court; the editors of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, the bosses of the television networks and cable stations, the presidents of Yale and Harvard and other big universities and the heads of think-tanks such as the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation.”

This Organization Department controls more than 70 million party personnel assignments across the country, and it is no small matter to win their approval for senior party roles like La’s. Although, as McGregor wrote, “their vetting process takes place behind closed doors and appointments are announced without any explanation about why they have been made,” it’s not difficult to imagine intense lobbying, backbiting, mudslinging, and all manner of political fisticuffs. And La would have had to pass intense scrutiny– the Organization Department has access to dossiers and background checking capabilities that put the CIA and NSA to shame.

So don’t let La’s quiet, academic demeanor fool you; he’s undoubtedly as tough and effective as they come in China’s political bureaucracy. And that’s saying a lot.

Robert Cain is a producer and entertainment industry consultant who has been doing business in China since 1987. He can be reached at rob@pacificbridgepics.com and at www.pacificbridgepics.com.

Lovers vs. Fighters in China, ‘So Young’ vs. ‘Iron Man 3’; and the Winner Is…

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By Robert Cain for China Film Biz

April 26, 2013

The PRC movie showdown between So Young and Iron Man 3 is now at hand. And what a showdown it is! The two movies combined couldn’t possibly generate as much drama, tension, and emotional angst as has the behind-the-scenes battle over IM3’s release date.

Although So Young has only just opened, and Iron Man 3 has yet to unspool in China, So Young has already won the battle, thanks to a relentless campaign by that film’s Chinese distributor Enlight to derail the Disney/Marvel/DMG machine. The story of the two films’ jockeying for position offers interesting (and somewhat damning) insight into how SARFT favors domestic movies over foreign ones.

Back in March it was announced that the romantic melodrama So Young and the Hollywood action tent-pole Iron Man 3 would open head-to-head on April 26th. This is an excellent date, just ahead of the three-day Labor Day/May Day holiday, when business is expected to be brisk.

As a local film, So Young’s debut on April 26th was locked. As a perceived foreign film, albeit one with a domestic Chinese investor and partner in DMG, Iron Man 3 was on shaky ground, subject to the indignities that several Hollywood movies have recently faced in China (see this article for a taste of how Hollywood movies have fared lately at the hands of SARFT).

After much lobbying by the producers of both films, and a confusing string of announcements by various parties about where Iron Man 3 would land, it now appears that the Robert Downey Jr.-starring action extravaganza has been granted a release at 12:01am on May 1st.

For So Young, this is great news. The low-budget romantic melodrama gets the holiday to itself, and five full days to rake in its spoils before the big budget Hollywood movie enters the scene. Indeed, early reports are saying that So Young has opened to an excellent $8 million Friday debut, and that it has a good shot at earning at least $100 million.

For Iron Man 3, the May 1st date has to be disappointing, but it’s much better than the May 3rd date that had been widely reported a few days ago. Never mind the rather silly assertion from “Deadline” that May 3rd was the date Disney and Marvel were “eyeing all along.” Why would anyone be happy to open just after a major box office holiday? That was pure face-saving spin, presumably from Disney’s PR folks. Credit DMG with fighting a nearly unwinnable fight and preserving at least one day of the holiday to bolster its debut.

Whether Iron Man 3 can overtake So Young and become the first Hollywood film in over a year to reach $100 million is an open question, but missing the first two days of the three-day holiday will certainly hurt its prospects.

According to ‘Firedeep’, my unfailingly reliable “deep throat” in China, Iron Man 3 was buffeted by a series of unexpected delays, which began with some late reshoots of its Chinese scenes. According to Firedeep, the locked print of the film wasn’t sent to the Film Bureau for technical censorship until the night of April 12th, which made the April 26th debut a rather iffy, although still perfectly possible, proposition.

Meanwhile, the translation and dubbing of the film ran into late hour delays when Marvel decided to replace the original translator.

But the biggest obstacle for Iron Man 3 emerged when So Young’s distributor, Enlight Films, decided to play the ‘local film protection’ card, putting up major resistance to its competitor’s holiday release date by appealing to China’s Film Bureau. It’s rumored that So Young’s celebrity director, Vicky Zhao, showed up at the Bureau and literally cried her way to sympathy and ultimate victory. The film authorities dithered and vacillated before finally announcing their ‘final’ decision about IM3 on Friday, causing great confusion amongst moviegoers and provoking howls of protest from Marvel’s Chinese fanboys.

As one sharp-tongued Chinese observer put it on a PRC film website, “Back and forth. This whole thing is a fucking mess. Fuck Enlight Pictures and fuck SARFT like every time.”

And as if to underscore the point, SARFT continued to torture Django Unchained by repeatedly approving and then un-approving that film’s re-release. On Thursday one announcement pegged Django’s theatrical revival for May 9th, and a day later it was supposedly pushed to May 12th.  It’s death by a thousand cuts. Meanwhile many frustrated Tarantino fans have undoubtedly downloaded the uncensored BD-rip from pirate sites, leaving one to wonder whether any among them will still be waiting to buy theater tickets if and when the movie finally goes back up on the big screen.

Robert Cain is a producer and entertainment industry consultant who has been doing business in China since 1987. He can be reached at rob@pacificbridgepics.com and at www.pacificbridgepics.com.

How China’s Movie Distribution System Works, Part 2

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By Firedeep and Robert Cain for China Film Biz

November 9, 2012

This is the second part of a two-part article. Part 1 can be found here.

Movie Theaters in China
Despite having the second largest number of movie screens in the world, with well over 12,000 as of this writing, China remains one of the world’s most under-screened major territories in terms of movie screens per capita. Whereas the United States has one screen for about every 7,800 people, China only has one for every 112,000. There are numerous cities in China of 500,000 and even 1 million people that have no modern movie screens. For China to be on par with the U.S. on a per capita basis, it would have to open 160,000 more screens.

Because the vast majority of China’s multiplexes were built in the past five years, its cinema infrastructure is highly modern and technologically advanced. Of the country’s roughly 12,000 screens, more than 10,000 have digital projection and about 7,000 are equipped for 3D. There are about 3,300 theater locations operated by 45 commercial cinema chains in China, about 2,200 of which can report box office daily.

In total, in the first six months of 2012, 1286 theaters each managed to exceed ticket sales of more than 1 million RMB (about US $160,000) at the box office. And about 100 theaters sold over 1 million dollars box office in the first half of the year. Between January and August, 423 new theaters with over 2,500 new screens had opened their doors. 

Revenue Sharing
Until the new WTO MOU was agreed early this year, imported films entitled to revenue sharing would receive from 13% to about 17.5% of the total box office receipts of their films, depending on how much the movie actually made.  “Total box office receipts” is defined as the amount reported by the Office of China Film Special Funds. This figure is almost certainly always under-stated, for reasons we will see below, and because there is a material amount of skimming that takes place at China’s theaters. Before the WTO MOU, if a revenue-shared Hollywood movie earned less than 45 million yuan at the box office then it would only get 13% of the reported gross. Those films grossing more than 45 million yuan would receive as much as 17.5%. After the WTO MOU was agreed, revenue sharing films now receive a straight 25 percent of all box office receipts. Much simpler, and better for the foreign producers.

China Film and Huaxia Film receive about 22 percent of the gross from foreign releases. The rest, after taxes, goes to the exhibitors, and amounts to roughly 45 percent of the gross.

By way of comparison, local movie producers can distribute their products almost limitlessly and usually they, the producers and distributors combined receive about 43% from the gross. Generally, theaters operators receive slightly more share from Hollywood movies than from local movies.

Release Dating
The release date for each and every film is decided by the Distribution and Exhibition Association (DEA), a government office that is a subsidiary of SARFT. Before any film can receive a release date, the finished version of the film must first be approved by the Film Bureau. After that, the distributor submits the film to the DEA seeking a release date. Multi-party negotiations take place among distributors, exhibitors, the Association and sometimes even the Film Bureau, regarding the date of release.

The film is only officially dated after the DEA provides the corresponding release licenses and notification, which can happen as late as just a few days before the film’s opening. The bigger the movie is, the harder it is for it to get a quick approval and date, especially for imported films. Hollywood’s major studios are completely at the mercy of this dating process, with no real say of their own, since they are not the distributors. For foreign buyout movies, the local distributors can play a limited role. For local movies, the local distributors have much greater influence over their films’ dating.

The Theatrical Release
The discussion below pertains mainly to imported foreign movies.

Once approved by the Film Bureau, a film will be delivered to a certain local studio (usually Shanghai Film Studio or Beijing Film Studio) for dubbing, subtitling and printing. In the case of revenue-sharing imports, the foreign studios pay for this service; for buyout movies the local distributors usually pay. Most movies’ marketing campaigns in China begin at this point. There is no point in spending money on advertising until the movie’s release date is set. This process usually allows far less time for marketing a movie in China than in most other territories.

Before 2012, most movies still used physical release prints for distribution. But since early 2012, printed copies are becoming rare, mostly because almost all theaters now only do digital projection. Prints, which usually cost about 10,000 yuan per print, have been eliminated because they’re too expensive. Before this year, low budget buyout movies usually received only limited releases, but with the lower releasing costs of digital distribution, it is now possible for these same low budget buyout movies to enjoy wide releases.

In the heyday of physical prints, a wide release usually meant a few hundred printed copies. One of the biggest physical print releases, Transformers 2, went out on roughly 700 prints. Nowadays, a wide opening can cover more than 2,200 theaters. Fewer than 1,000 theaters, mostly single-screen older cinemas, run physical prints, typically days or weeks after the film’s initial release on digital copies, so they are unable to contribute much to a film’s total gross. Among all the imported movies in 2012, almost none used prints, except for the four non-digital IMAX copies of The Dark Knight Rises.

A digital copy of a film can only be projected if the theater has the appropriate digital key. All keys are released and managed by China Film Group. The keys expire every 15 days. Usually a big movie can have its key renewed and enjoy 30 days of initial wide release, after which a two week extended limited run usually will follow. However extended runs weren’t allowed this past September for releases like The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, Prometheus and The Expendables 2. Sometimes extensions can be authorized twice or even more for a movie with strong legs. For instance, Mission Impossible 4 managed seven weeks in the top 10. Its entire run lasted from January 28 to March 31, 64 days. Along with Inception this was the longest run for a movie since Avatar.

MI4 had very strong word of mouth that carried it to a 6X multiplier of its opening weekend after a record-breaking two-day opening. But Avatar, remains the multiplier king. Opened on January 4, 2010, many theaters were still showing the film in May. Some theaters were even showing it in November 2010. Shanghai’s Heping IMAX theater sold out every single IMAX show for Avatar for almost three months.

Marketing and Advertising
Generally, the Hollywood studios pay the marketing and advertising costs for their films that are released in Chinese theatres, while CFGC or Huaxia (or both of them) pay for prints (they also might pay for the printed posters/theater standees in cinemas). However, studios are only allowed to do limited advertising on the internet and in outdoor venues due to protections for local films. Direct advertising on TV for Hollywood films is not allowed, which is the most effective way to market a movie in China. And since TV ads are relatively too expensive for local films, TV spots for local movies are rare to see in China. The most common ways of marketing a movie in China are via internet ads (cheap, easy and sometimes very effective) and in cinemas (traditional and effective).

Two years ago, many trailers for both Hollywood and local movies could be seen before a movie but now Hollywood trailers have disappeared in most China theatres. What happened? Hollywood trailers were replaced by ads for cars, real estate, shopping, and local films. Why? Because most (80%+) screens in China are now digital and trailers and ads are now easily removed. Hollywood studios have weak control on distributing their films in China despite the fact that they pay for the majority of the advertising.

The biggest marketing campaigns so far belong to Avatar, Transformers 3, and Titanic 3D.

Outdoor banners and billboards for Hollywood tent-pole movies can often be seen in crowded places and heavily-trafficked urban areas. Though they can’t air spots on cable TV, studios like Sony often show movie spots on advertising screens in the Shanghai subways. It was reported that about 800,000 yuan was spent for doing such ads for two weeks to promote Men in Black 3.

 Box Office Reporting
There are only three regular box office report outlets that currently exist in China, but their numbers are very limited, they are not quite accurate and not quite official. The big movie sites in China have been reporting weekly top 10 numbers since 2008, claiming to receive their numbers from an organization which is part of SARFT/ Film Bureau. Box office numbers can also be found on Weibo.com, the most popular Chinese social media site, every Tuesday.

The numbers from the various reporting outlets usually differ slightly from each other. So which one to quote? Any one can be quoted since all reporting is just estimates after all. The raw data they are reporting comes from the Office of China Film Group Special Funds because only the Special Funds have the raw daily/weekly box office numbers.

The Special Funds have a nationwide theater-based computer ticket counting system which covers most commercial theaters in China. Currently only 674 top selling theaters can be tracked by the system in real time. This part usually accounts for 70% of a movie’s total box office. Over one thousand other theaters can do day-end (usually around 02:00am when theaters close) or next-day (usually around 10:00am when daily business begins) ticket sales reports. And by next late morning, usually about 1,900 to 2,200 theaters have reported box office for the day before, and by that time, as much as 95%-97% of a movie’s (daily) box office has been reported. The rest comes from hundreds of other theaters that report on a weekly or even monthly basis.

Unfortunately the Special Funds don’t do any weekly/daily report themselves, though they do offer paid subscriptions to certain media outlets.

Weekly box office reports are all based on the Special Funds numbers. And since the movie website reports seem to be the most accurate, we use their numbers here, sometimes augmented by other sources if necessary.

The revenue-sharing figures provided to studios and distributors come from the Special Funds accounting reports even if there are still theaters that didn’t get counted by the Special Funds. For example, a film may wind up actually grossing 105 million RMB at the box office, but only 97 million of the 105 million was reported by the end of its run. The 97 million will be shared by the Special Funds, distributors, exhibitors and foreign studios. Three months later, another 5 million would be reported, so the 5 million will be shared in the same way. Another revenue share will happen if extra money is found later. By the end, if only 103 million gets reported by the Special Funds, 103 million will be the movie’s final box office number, that is, the clearing/accounting number. 2 million gets lost in the long run. Again, take Avatar for example: no one really knows how much it lost in this way. Generally conservative estimate put its loss at a whopping 200 million yuan.

In total, only a few dozen people in China can get full access to the Special Funds data system. Dozens of local film distributors can also get into the system, but only for their own distributed movies.

The China branche offices of Hollywood studios have no authority to access the Special Funds reports. The only way for them to confirm the numbers reported to them by China Film or Huaxia Film is to do local checking with every theater and theater chain.

Apart from the Special Funds, there is another national wide box office statistics agency: China Film Distribution and Exhibition Association (the DEA).

The DEA box office statistics are based on exhibitors’ initiative report, including theaters that don’t even have computer sale systems, though their report can take months to compile. As a result, the DEA numbers will usually be a little higher than the Special Funds. But the DEA never releases weekly numbers publicly, just monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly numbers. China’s official year-end reports tend to use the DEA numbers, not the numbers that are reported to studios, distributors, or exhibitors in Special Funds accounting reports. For example, say The Dark Knight Rises made 329 million yuan according to the Special Funds while 345M according to the DEA final number, it is the 329 million figure that matters to Warner Brothers, since that is the number from which they ultimately collect their revenue share.

Chinese theater operators, distributors and film producers widely acknowledge the flaws in China’s theatrical distribution and accounting systems, and SARFT appears to be taking these issues seriously. China has only been in the modern multiplex business for a few short years, and steay improvements are constantly being made. Whether these improvements will ultimately benefit foreign movie suppliers still remains to be seen.

Robert Cain is a producer and entertainment industry consultant who has been doing business in China since 1987. He can be reached at rob@pacificbridgepics.com and at www.pacificbridgepics.com.

How China’s Movie Distribution System Works, Part 1

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By Firedeep and Robert Cain for China Film Biz

November 7, 2012

This is the first part of a two-part article. Part 2 can be found here.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of China Film Biz, and this is the 100th China Film Biz post I’ve published.

In honor of these events, I’m publishing a comprehensive set of articles about China’s film distribution ecosystem, which I think you’ll find useful. I’ll publish the article in two parts, with today’s post offering a glossary of concepts and definitions and an overview of the industry’s major players; a subsequent article will discuss such topics as release dating, releasing, marketing and advertising, box office reporting and revenue sharing.

In part 1 we’ll begin with a few concepts and definitions.

SARFT and the Film Bureau
The State Administration of Radio Film and Television, referred to as SARFT, is the executive branch under the State Council that oversees all Radio, Film and Television content within China. More on Wiki…

Sarft is a giant government institution. It has a Film Bureau that specifically focuses on motion pictures.
China Film Group Corporation (CFGC or CFG)

China Film Group Corporation, often referred to as CFG, is a stated-owned conglomerate that has the exclusive right to import foreign movies to China. CFG is also the biggest producer of local and co-production films and the biggest distributor of local and foreign movies in the country.

Huaxia Film Distribution Co.,Ltd
Launched in March 2003, Huaxia is the second and only other distributor of foreign movies aside from CFGC. Huaxia Film cannot import movies, and its distribution strength is not as great as China Film Group’s.

Revenue-shared movies
Imported by China Film Group and distributed by CFG or Huaxia Film or both, a revenue-shared movie is a film imported from abroad under terms that allow the foreign supplier to receive a defined share of the film’s Chinese theatrical gross. Usually only major Hollywood movies can be imported as revenue-shared movies. The first revenue-shared movie, Harrison Ford’s The Fugitive, was released on November 12th, 1994. After that there were 10 revenue-shared movies allowed to reach Chinese theaters every year. In 2002, this annual quota was raised to 20 revenue-shared movies. In 2012, the quota expanded to 34, 14 of which must be 3D or IMAX films.

Buyout movies
A buyout is a foreign movie acquired by a Chinese local distributor at a fixed price to be released in China. The buyout prices usually range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands dollars.

The first movie buyout occurred in the mid-1980s when China Film Group bought the theatrical release rights for Superman (1978) from Warner Brothers at a price of $50,000. Most buyout movies are handled by Chinese local film distributors. China Film and Huaxia Film also do a few buyout deals each year. Usually local distributors seek foreign films via film festivals and markets like Cannes and AFM, or oversea producers offer their films to local distributors seeking cooperation, and the local distributors submit the film to China Film for import licenses. After receiving the import license, the local distributor hands the movie over to China Film or Huaxia Film for the distribution. That being said, it is the local distributors who who do the actual distribution work. China Film or Huaxia Film do little more than to provide the distribution authorization, for which they receive about a quarter of the movie’s gross.

There are two kinds of buyout movies: 1) one-time buyout ones (as introduced above); most buyouts belong to this category; 2) revenue-shared buyout movies, which are handled the same way as above but the foreign producers can receive revenue share in addition to the buyout price when the films’ Chinese theatrical gross reaches a certain level. This September’s hit, The Expendables 2, and Relativity Media’s Immortals and Mirror Mirror were all revenue-shared buyouts.

Buyout movies weren’t common until 2005 when the buyout quota expanded to 30. Only 4 or 5 of the buyout quota films can be Hollywood/American films; the rest must come from Europe, Hong Kong and Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Australia, India, Latin America, etc, or from multinational co-productions.

CHINA FILM DISTRIBUTION AND EXHIBITION ASSOCIATION
A subsidiary body of SARFT referred to herein as the ASSOCIATION, made up of over 3,000 local distributors and exhibitors, is in charge of dating all films and overseeing the entire run of all films.

Hollywood Majors in China
Disney, Paramount, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, and Universal all have branches in Mainland China, while Warner Bros does business in Mainland through its Hong Kong based branch. Among the majors Universal is the weakest in China.

Disney is building a $16 billion theme park in Shanghai while DreamWorks Animation is planning a $3B studio in Shanghai too.

Currently, Disney, Paramount, Sony and Fox all are doing strong business in China. In the long run, it appears that Disney might be the biggest player here. 

The Office of China Film Special Funds
This subsidiary body of the Film Bureau, referred to as China Film Special Funds, is responsible for box office statistics in China. It collects 5% from every film’s theatrical gross as special funds for supporting local film production and theater construction. One thing to note is that the 5% they collect is not counted as part of theaters’ business tax.

More to come in Part 2.

Robert Cain is a producer and entertainment industry consultant who has been doing business in China since 1987. He can be reached at rob@pacificbridgepics.com and at www.pacificbridgepics.com.