MCLC: local flavor at the box office (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Simon Laing <slaing4 at gmail.com>
Subject: local flavor at the box office (1)
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There was an  article (I think from the New York times) last year about
steps the Chinese government were taking to make sure the Chinese films
out-sold the US ones. These included providing bonuses around 50,000 CNY
to cinemas and distributors that fitted the bill each month.

The article mentioned that this was causing some cinemas to file receipts
that western movies made as the Chinese movies.

Thus 2013 compared to 2014 it was tricky trying to watch a western movie.
>From personal experience, Western movies often were only shown for 1 or
sometimes 2 weeks then switched out. At my  Nanjing downtown movie
theaters, often the theaters only had Chinese films playing. Chinese film
production and scripts have improved, but I think talking about the
manipulation and controlling the competition with other incentives plays a
role as well in this market dynamic.

Simon Laing