All the right movies

By Liu Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-13 09:19

"Finally some big studio showed interest in our project. We were ambitious to make the film a huge hit not only in domestic market, but in international theaters."

Wang says his team was like a sponge, absorbing and learning everything it could from the established studio.

Because of cultural differences and excessive inputs in its international distribution, Big Shot's overseas profit was "very frustrating".

However, Wang says the experience gained from working with a top-flight international team was very rewarding and carried over to future film productions.

Developing an eye for budget details was a good example.

Huayi's budget schedule, which was more accurate than most local companies at that time, was accurate to about 10,000 yuan ($1,400), but Columbia's budgets were calculated down to the exact cent.

Huayi needed only one page to list all the items, while Columbia had 10 pages for every department's budget, and every department had an accountant. There were more than 2,000 items on the production list.

Huayi chose only 300 of the 2,000 and Wang jokingly told Columbia his company had no money to hire so many accountants. Now Huayi's film budgets include the same cent-accurate detail.

Thanks to more and more international co-productions, many Chinese film companies are adopting the same detailed bookkeeping methods, Wang says.

Although a pioneer in international co-production among private film companies, Huayi still directs most of its attention to the local market.

"It took America about 100 years to promote its culture so that Hollywood films sell in every corner of the globe," Wang says.

"Transformers could not have earned 300 million yuan in China without the TV cartoon, which was extremely popular here two decades ago.

"When Chinese culture has not that big an influence in global cinema, to make the local cake big is still the most important thing."

DVD piracy is still the biggest problem facing the local market, he says.

Huayi's last work, Feng's war epic The Assembly topped last year's mainland box office with 260 million yuan ($37 million), but income from DVDs was zero.

Huayi would not sell the DVD copyright to disc producers because they would only accept a 15-day delay of the theatrical release, otherwise pirated DVDs would hit the market.

But Huayi insisted on 45 days to ensure the box office, so the negotiation broke up.

As for anti-piracy efforts, Wang is confident in the government's efforts.

(China Daily 05/13/2008 page19)

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