A New York Times article on January 25 entitled "Why Hollywood blockbusters are no longer popular in China" wrote: Last year, no American movie ranked among the top ten box office in China, and Chinese movie audiences who are eager for Hollywood blockbusters are gradually disappearing.
Before the sequel to " Aquaman " was released in China last month, Warner Bros. tried its best to continue the success of the previous film.
The Hollywood film company released a large number of film clips, behind-the-scenes footage, and a video of the "Aquaman" ice sculpture at the Harbin Ice Sculpture Festival on Douyin. Warner sent the series' star Jason Momoa and director James Wan on a promotional tour of China, a type of promotion not seen since the coronavirus outbreak. Momoa said China's love of "Aquaman" is why the sequel opened in China two days ahead of the U.S.
"I'm very proud that Chinese people like this movie, so we're going to bring it so Chinese audiences can see it first," he said in an interview with China's state-run CCTV Movie Channel.
However, these propaganda campaigns did not work.
" Aquaman 2: The Lost Kingdom " only received about US$60 million (approximately 430 million yuan) at the box office after being released in mainland China for a few weeks. This is far behind the US$90 million that "Aquaman" earned during its premiere weekend in China in 2018. "Aquaman"'s final box office revenue in China reached US$293 million (approximately 2.1 billion yuan), accounting for 25% of the film's hugely successful global box office of $1.2 billion.
In fact, the producer of "Aquaman" is not the only film company that has been frustrated in the Chinese market.
Although the "Mission: Impossible", "Fast and Furious" and "Spider-Man" movie series all launched highly anticipated sequels in 2023, no American film has entered the top ten of China's annual box office.
According to statistics from Maoyan, a Chinese entertainment data provider that has tracked box office revenue since 2011, Hollywood's two top-grossing films last year, " Oppenheimer " and " Barbie ," did not make it into the top tier of China's box office. 30 . Before this, Hollywood was excluded from the top ten Chinese box office movies in 2020, during the new coronavirus pandemic.
Chinese movie audiences who flock to Hollywood blockbusters are gradually disappearing. So far, China is the largest film market outside the United States. With the film industry facing difficulties, the Chinese market is also an important place for American film companies to achieve growth and profitability.
"Gone are the days when a Hollywood blockbuster made hundreds of millions of dollars in China," said Stanley Rosen, a professor at the University of Southern California who studies Chinese politics and the film industry.
China's film industry is producing more high-quality films that resonate with domestic audiences. Two of China's top hits last year highlighted the diversity of the domestic film industry: the dialogue-rich suspense thriller "A River in Red" and the special-effects sci-fi blockbuster "The Wandering Earth 2."
Amid growing tensions between the two countries, Chinese officials have advanced their ambitions to spread cultural influence and support local producers to create films that are consistent with current politics.
In recent years, some of China's highest-grossing films have featured a stronger, more confident China. The highest-grossing movie of all time is "Changjin Lake" released in 2021. The film tells the story of the Chinese volunteers overcoming numerous difficulties and defeating the United States in the Korean War. There’s also the 2017 nationalist action film “Wolf Warrior 2,” in which a Jason Bourne-like Chinese protagonist takes on American mercenaries.
Ishikawa, vice chairman of the Shanghai Filmmakers Association, said that many American film companies once regarded China as a market where they could always make money. But that is no longer the case. Cautious Chinese consumers are reducing spending, and China's box office revenue has not yet returned to pre-epidemic levels .
"Now I clearly tell American film producers that this mentality is no longer viable," Ishikawa said. "You must have an in-depth study of the Chinese market, Chinese audiences, and Chinese pop culture."
Hollywood's enthusiasm for the Chinese market can be traced back many years. "The Fugitive" released in 1994 was the first American blockbuster to be introduced. A year later, China began allowing 10 foreign films to be released in the country each year. In 2012, seven of the top ten movies at the box office in China were produced in the United States. By then, domestic theater attendance had begun a slow, decades-long decline. DVD sales were dismal. Streaming is still in its infancy.
Growth-hungry Hollywood studios see the rapidly expanding Chinese market as a solution. As vice president, Biden helped win Hollywood more access to theaters in China, which was building new theaters at a breakneck pace. China has increased the number of U.S. films allowed into the country from 20 to 34 per year. China agreed to let the United States receive 25% of the box office of movies approved to be released in China, which was previously about 13%.
Since profitability is a struggle for most films, additional revenue from China is important. Hollywood studios began to change the content of their movies to attract Chinese ticket buyers: more spectacular scenes based on visual effects, and less drama and comedy plots based on dialogue.
American film companies have become ingratiated, pay attention to red lines in advance. In one widely reported example, Tom Cruise's bomber jacket in 1986's Top Gun featured the Japanese and Republic of China flags, and in the trailer for Paramount Pictures' 2019 sequel , the flags were replaced by blurred patches of the same color. In Top Gun: Maverick, released in 2022, these flags appear again.
But after further escalation in trade and diplomatic tensions between the two powers, Hollywood is caught in a dilemma, and its flattering approach has come under increasing scrutiny, especially in 2020, when a watchdog group issued a harshly critical report of Hollywood. The attention of American politicians from both parties.
Film executives decided last year that, for now at least, China's demand for American films had changed so much that film production budgets would have to be readjusted. Less money must be spent on making blockbuster sequels because China can no longer be counted on to provide the same levels of revenue as before, even though the number of Chinese cinema screens has quadrupled in the past decade.
In 2014, "Transformers 4: Age of Extinction" topped China's box office with revenue of US$280 million. Last year, the latest installment in the series, "Transformers: Rise of the Super Warriors," took in about a third of the revenue of the 2014 installment, ranking 24th in China's box office.
Part of the problem is that Chinese people love to watch Douyin, and Hollywood can’t promote movies on the platform fast enough.
Zhao Jin, head of Beijing-based overseas film sales company Vision Culture, said Hollywood studios are reluctant to reveal plots and key scenes on social media before a movie is released, but doing so in China is crucial to attracting audience interest.
"Hollywood blockbusters haven't fully caught up with Chinese marketing," Zhao Jin said.
Many of the blockbusters released by Hollywood last year, including the "Transformers" sequel, the latest "Mission Impossible", "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie", do not have their own official Douyin accounts.
Hannah Li, 27, works at a technology company in Beijing. She said she used to only watch foreign movies, but that changed recently. She said her favorite movie last year was "The Wandering Earth 2," which tells the story of how the world comes together to save the earth from being devoured by the sun. Ms. Lee said the film promoted a kind of collectivism she had rarely seen in Hollywood films and that it should send a signal to American producers.
"If you want the traffic from mainland China and don't want to put down your profile to see what mainlanders like, then it is natural to be eliminated by the mainland," Ms. Li said. "Hollywood movies can no longer bring something fresh to mainland audiences."
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