Dr. Bob's minions tire away endlessly to help the good Doctor in the name of science,
but with what little downtime they get they would like to share with you fine people! 

Chinacraft

By Critch

 

     So Warcraft the movie just came out, approximately twelve years too late to make too much of a splash in the movie theater world.  The critics slammed it, and the audiences largely ignored it, resulting in America, at least, one of the biggest bombs for a big budget fantasy movie since, sigh, Krull.

     But it's not a bomb in the slightest because of China.  Everywhere else in the world has ignored it for the most part but in China it's a huge hit, making the majority of it's money and almost guaranteeing a sequel despite failing everywhere else.

     The new reality of movies is that it's a worldwide market now.  More than ever before movies are made not just for America, and sometimes not for America at all.  Have you noticed a Chinese character in a movie that seems shoehorned in, shows up for one or two scenes and then are never mentioned again?  This is because China is very selective at what foreign movies get released there.  Homegrown movies like The Mermaid and Monster Huntmay never see release outside of their borders but do 200-300 million just in China alone.  Owing to their desire to protect their own product, they only let in a few movies a year, two dozen or so.  Because of how big the market is there, studios are doing everything they can to appeal to that market.  Transformers: Age of Extinction for example had an entire scene moved to China just so they could get in the market.  And it worked, and paid off.  USA audiences dropped off big for TF4, dropping from 400 mil to 250, but China made up the difference.  Avengers: Age of Ultron also had a character created for this purpose.  In business itself, Chinese investors recently purchased Legendary pictures, creators of Warcraft and Pacific Rim.  The country is making a move into movies in a big way.

     So next time you go out and see a big budget blockbuster see if you can spot the appeal to the Chinese market.   The better movies of course will be able to seamlessly integrate the studio-ordered changes, but for the most part, you're going to see a lot of things that don't quite fit in.

Previously on Minion Musings...