James Cameron’s The Way of Water continues the pattern of Hollywood blockbusters – but not the Chinese tentpoles – struggling in the Middle Kingdom
“We may never know how the second image posted by Pandora in China would have performed if it had possibly been opened in the absence of COVID,” said attorney Stephen Saltzman. The head of international entertainment group at law firm Fieldfisher noted that the film’s opening weekend came shortly after a lifting of COVID-specific restrictions and a spike in infections.
Whatever the reasons for the worse-than-expected performance, the result merely continues a trend. After these last few years, as previously reported by TheWrap, Hollywood is once again treating the Chinese box office as a mere luxury.
Hollywood Films in China and Their Box Offices, 2012-2022 (Comscore)
Deepak Sarma, a professor of Asian studies at Case Western Reserve University, noted that “China’s financial allure is waning and Hollywood is a few steps behind.” He noted that tech companies are “migrating from China to Vietnam to diversify their manufacturing capabilities.”
As previously mentioned, Hollywood’s share of the Chinese box office has risen from a peak of $3.3 billion in 2017 to a projected end of over/under $500 million in 2022, with the number of those licensed there not being -Chinese films has fallen from a peak of 73 in 2018 to under 30 this year. Fewer movies are arriving and those that are (apart from rare exceptions like Godzilla vs. Kong, which grossed $188 million in 2021) are making less than they did before COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Hollywood biggies like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($965 million excluding China) or Minions: The Rise of Gru ($37 million in China of $935 million worldwide) are making everywhere otherwise business as usual while Chinese tent poles like “The Eight Hundred” (US$460 million in 2020) or “Hi, Mom” (US$835 million in 2021) are attracting pre-COVID level business in China.
Saltzman reminded TheWrap that “the notion of China salvaging failed Hollywood tent poles was largely a myth.” Even in the 2010s, movies like xXx: Return of Xander Cage, which grossed $164 million in China out of $385 million worldwide, or Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, which grossed $159 million grossed in China and $312 million worldwide, an exception rule. Most of the big Hollywood movies that broke out in China were the same MCU movies, “Jurassic” sequels, and “Fast Saga” movies that broke out worldwide.
Former DMG President Chris Fenton told TheWrap that “more than at any time in the last decade, anything that comes out of Hollywood is explicitly viewed by Beijing as Western propaganda.” The author of “Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, & American Business” further noted that even intrusive “soft power” American propaganda like Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun” sequel and seemingly harmless comedies like ” “Crazy Rich Asians” (which show people living with comparable wealth and freedom and behaving in ways they couldn’t in China) are often viewed with greater governmental or cultural disapproval.
Case in point, Fenton argued, Canadian-born James Cameron — who’s done everything right to endear himself in China over the past two decades — and his latest ‘Avatar’ sequel represent too much of America right now in the eyes of Beijing.”
“You play by the rules, look at the riches you’re going to have,” Fenton observed, implicitly describing the tacit collusion between the two filmmaking superpowers over the past decade. He also claimed that “Beijing feels they just don’t need Hollywood anymore as they now have a thriving tentpole industry and are keeping all the earnings from the domestic films.”
Therefore, even an overall drop in box office receipts (the first half of 2022 in China was down 38% in terms of total box office receipts compared to 2021) can be seen as an acceptable price the Chinese government is paying to maintain cultural supremacy must and prioritize their own tentpoles.
Part of the implicit quid pro quo was that China used Hollywood interest to learn the tools of filmmaking. China has been releasing its own culture-specific, big budgets, high production values, and crowd pleasers for nearly a decade. The success of Wolf Warrior II ($854 million in 2017) arguably signaled that China could do it on its own, which is also the implied subtext of Wu Jing’s “Chinese government agent saves Africa from genocidal arms dealers without America’s help” action spectacular.
While some of these films were sufficiently mainstream around the world to serve as potential cultural ambassadors, a shift in priorities (and heightening tensions between America and China amid Donald Trump’s presidency) prompted China to emphasize the country’s patriotism to global proselytization.
“Using cinema to project a culture-specific image beyond its confines no longer has the same priority as it once did,” argued Saltzman. This could be less conventional/globally mainstream Chinese tent poles like Jackie Chan’s “Kung Fu Yoga” or Yi-Mou Zhang’s “The Great Wall” – starring Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal – and a more stereotypically nationalistic (but generally not jingoistic) quasi-propaganda war mean epics like the two-part, IMAX-shot Battle of Lake Changjin, which grossed $910 million in 2021 and $610 million in 2022.
The new normal for the future could be one of mutually assured indifference. However, the global box office success (so far) of Avatar: The Way of Water, with an estimated grossing income of under $100 million from China, shows once again that China’s cinema industry, especially as COVID conditions improve, may want Hollywood blockbusters more needs as Tinseltown needs Chinese box office. Focusing on the cinema business alone could result in no industry overly influencing the other.
“I will [Hollywood] to be a success, to be a bastion of free speech and American-Western values, and it will be again,” Fenton said. He often expresses mixed feelings about his key role in bringing Hollywood, including the MCU, to China after helping Iron Man 3 become a trendsetter in the summer of 2013. “It is important that our films resonate in China, but not in China at the expense of our own cultural values.”
This article has been updated to reflect the latest Disney worldwide box office results.
