Movies made for China

Quote: AZDuffman

Maybe or maybe not. If Columbus still discovered the New World you would have still seen the opening up. Maybe even faster as Europe would have been more overcrowded. I will concede he may not have sailed had the Dark Ages not been closing, but it has always been my understanding the Age of Discovery slammed the door on the Dark Ages closed.

Well Columbus's discovery was a century and a half past the Black Death. The huge advances in ship building and navigation particularly by the Portuguese made the Age of Discovery possible. In turn the voyages were given a huge push by the fall of Constantinople to the Muslims in 1453, which drove the need for a sea route to Asia to trade in silk and spices.

Columbus firmly believed that sailing from the Canary Islands to Asia was no further than sailing from Gibralter to Lebanon in the Med. Sea. Even after all his voyages he still believed that when he died. The intellectuals in Spain knew the world was bigger than that, and that no ship could sail the actual distance. King Ferdnand funded Columbus as a desperate measure, because he knew that the Portuguese would eventually make it around Africa to get to Asia.

So while the voyage of columbus may have slammed the door shut on the Middle Ages, it started closing after the Black Death.

And that opened the door for the plundering
of the New World. I recently watched Ken Burns
'The West' again, where he explores the opening
of the American west. Not the just the wild west,
everything west of NY. Europeans came here like
kids going into a candy store, they had a hunger
for land that knew no bounds. If it wasn't for congress
setting aside vast tracts as an afterthought during
the Civil War, for national parks, the Europeans would
have raped the entire country of its natural resources
in record time.

China is not automatically the biggest foreign market for all films. For example OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL did slightly worse than Russia-CIS
$25,910,000 China
$27,373,945 Russia - CIS

And James Bond in Skyfall is still not completely embraced outside of Europe
$25,243,991 Russia - CIS
$49,976,352 Australia
$59,234,352 China
$60,127,766 France
$85,283,256 Germany
$161,176,369 United Kingdom


That is a huge amount of money for the UK. Consider that USA has 5 times the population of the UK, that would be like making $800 million in ticket sales in the USA. The three biggest movies in the USA were:
1 Avatar $760.5 million
2 Titanic $658.7 million
3 Marvel's The Avengers $623.4 million

National parks were generally established as destinations that would give the existing rail roads increased traffic.

China? The future is more easily predicted than the past can be related.

China is only permitting 34 foreign films per year to be shown in mainland boxoffice. They have been particularly hard on animated films, presumably to protect their own industry. As a general rule censors around the world become particularly insane regarding children. The board does not have to supply a reason for excluding certain films.

Animated films are generally big money makers. To take in 5 to 10 times their production budget is fairly routine. They rarely become outright bombs (although it does happen).

Despicable Me 2 has been a run away success this year, when half a dozen high profile big budget live films have tanked. Unfortunately, it has been banned in China.
$ figures in millions for Animated Films
World box office - Name - Year - Production Budget
$1063 Toy Story 3 2010 $200
$952 The Lion King 1994 $45
$922 Finding Nemo 2003 $94
$920 Shrek 2 2004 $150
$887 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 2009 $90
$877 Ice Age: Continental Drift 2012 $95
$799 Shrek the Third 2007 $160
$753 Shrek Forever After 2010 $165
$742 Madagascar 3: 2012 $145
$731 Up 2009 $175
$666 Kung Fu Panda 2 2011 $150
$664 Despicable Me 2 2013 $76
$655 Ice Age: The Meltdown 2006 $80


It is difficult to understand why you would ban "Despicable Me 2" and permit "Bullet to the Head"

Foreign films permitted in China this year (in order of popularity) follow.
Iron Man 3
Man of Steel
The Croods
Skyfall
Star Trek Into Darkness
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
After Earth
Cloud Atlas
Oz The Great and Powerful
Oblivion
Resident Evil: Retribution
Jack Reacher
Les Miserables (2012)
Jack the Giant Slayer
Colombiana
The Adventures of Sinbad
Dredd
Django Unchained
Bullet to the Head
The Iron Lady
Gone (2013)