CMG's Cinema BuzzFEED

Chinese Censors Ban Minions But Cuddle-up to Smurfs



Banned in China

This week, Chinese film censors rejected the animated mega-hit Despicable Me 2 (Universal) and ordered that it not be exhibited at any movie theatre on the Chinese mainland. This followed the earlier banning of the zombie thriller World War Z.  The censors did give the go-ahead to The Smurfs 2 (Sony) although its distribution has not been guaranteed.

What's behind the Chinese government's banning of certain U.S. films and not others? Do the Chinese censors have an agenda?  The censors gave no reason for the rejections which leaves one speculating about their motives.  Through the first half of this year, the Chinese box office grew by 35%, but revenue from foreign films shrunk by over 21% during the same 6 month period.  This data was reported by the China State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television and points to the government's efforts to thwart the popularity of  U.S. and other imported movies.

The Chinese government has been hard on Hollywood this summer, for example, Fast & Furious 6 (Universal) which opened over two months ago in the rest of the world is to 'premier' in China this Friday.  For a non-3D movie, like Fast & Furious, this spells box office disaster as pirated versions have been on sale for the last 8-10 weeks.

The decisions to ban, pull, or postpone U.S. movie releases is the Chinese government's way of controlling the flow of  imported films, particularly animated ones, in favor of  Chinese films even if those films aren't up to Hollywood creative and production standards.  In the case of the recent animated film The Croods, (DreamWorks) the film was pulled from Chinese cinemas  two weeks early, with sources in the government hinting that the abrupt move was because the film was surpassing homegrown animated films at the box office.

The Chinese may be inscrutable but they are also predictable, and in the end it will all be about money, and that is what will crack the censors' blocks.

Movies or TV Shows - Which Do Viewers Stream


According to media research firm GfK, a recent survey showed that Netflix and Amazon Prime users prefer TV shows over movies by a margin of  3-to-1. In a statement, Netflix maintained that GfK's research validates their own data and further stated that "no one piece of content accounts for a massive amount of its viewing".

Mad Men and Breaking Bad, the most popular shows streamed, only garner 3% of all views each, with other popular TV shows only amassing 2% or less of total views.  Of the top 10 movies, only the Hunger Games topped 2% (with 7% viewership). The next most popular movie views were Mission:Impossible, A Dark Truth, and Thor.

According to David Tice, SVP at GfK, "We see that, streaming services generate episodic, niche viewing - more broad and unpredictable than even the 200 channels on your cable TV menu."  The research also showed that a significant amount of video-on-demand viewing takes place on internet connected TVs, followed by connected gaming consoles or Blu-ray players.  Note: GfK's research studied 2,300 viewing segments of more than 500 service subscribers over a one week timeframe.

The Heat is On

Back in April when I posted my Summer Movie Review (see post of 4/14/13) I said that The Heat, would be a box office 'sure thing' - as it has become.  The Heat, starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy as cops with very different work ethics and styles is a very funny movie. Although the casting and acting are very good it is the film's screenplay and script that made The Heat - not only a box office  sure thing, but this summer's mega-hit, amassing a gross of over $160 million to date and costing only $43 million to produce.


That screenplay and script was the work of Katie Dippold, the 31 year old comedy writer, who sold the screenplay (her first) of The Heat for $600,000 and was then asked by Director Paul Feig to do the film's script. Starting out as a staff writer for the sitcom "Parks and Recreation", Dippold's The Heat features two straight female characters with only vague romantic dalliances. "I felt that, for this movie to be made, there would have to be a rewrite - like, one of them had to get married in the middle - but it was never forced on us" recounts Dippold. "There's a female friend I have, another comedian, and when we became friends, she was very frank and very direct and honest. If I asked this friend her opinion, she was never overly polite, It was jarring but refreshing.  You see that in the Melissa McCarthy character who chisels away at Sandra Bullock's character the whole movie".

Dippold lives in LA and is working on another script based on the idea of a mother-daughter action comedy.  Good job Katie.

Best
Jim Lavorato