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Mai 19

The positive impact of China’s upcoming Film Promotion Law

While China’s box office is booming with receipts jumping to 49 % in 2015, reaching US$6.78 billion with a growth of 34% compared to the previous year, the global box office has grown slowly with an increase of less than 2 billion US$ from 2014 to 2015.

Moreover, since 2016 began, theatrical box office revenues in China had already grown up by 50%. Though a big part of China’s box office growth is due to the increasing demand for Chinese-speaking films, English-speaking movies are also benefitting from that growth.

Many international film companies, such as Warner Bros, Universal Studios, Walt Disney, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation, have already entered Chinese market, and more will certainly follow thanks to the upcoming Film Promotion Law. The first draft of the so called law was issued by China’s National People’s Congress (the NPC) on November 6, 2015. Some explanatory notes were issued in 2011 by the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council stating that this law will facilitate producers’ entry into China’s motion picture industry by erasing some restrictions such as those concerning “investment by social capital into film production”. Moreover, the approval procedures will be diminished in order to fight administrative burden that is slowing down the entry into Chinese market. The censorship procedure will also be facilitated as general themes movies will no longer be submitted to it.[1] This should give incentives to foreign producers in order to invest into Chinese market as an emerging, promising and more accessible Hollywood.

[1] China Film Insider, “China’s Film Industry Promotion Law: the new draft » by Mathew Alderson and Grace Yang, 10/11/2015, www.chinafilminsider.com/chinas-film-industry-promotion-law-the-new-draft/

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