CHINA TOPIX

12/22/2024 12:44:59 pm

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L.A. Mayor Urges China to Allow More Hollywood Film Imports


Following multiple private Chinese companies investing in the U.S. Hollywood film industry, the mayor of Los Angeles was in Beijing on Friday in efforts to get Chinese officials to raise the annual limit on foreign films, according to Reuters.


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Studio producers and business professionals within the industry are looking to capitalize on the second-largest film market in the world, as more partnerships between U.S. film studios and private Chinese companies are on the rise.

Although officials in China have slowly raised the annual limit of foreign films to a total of 34, they still have the power to determine whether a film may or may not be shown nationally. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti feels it's time for China to loosen its limitations on foreign films.

"I hope the Chinese government will see (Chinese companies') profits coming in, and their stake in more movies coming in from the West," Garcetti said during a Beijing conference. "Our best advocates are going to be Chinese companies who have a stake in this opening up."

Fosun International, one of the largest private multi-corporations in China, has reportedly invested over $200 million to be put towards a brand new Hollywood film studio and will collaborate with former Warner Bros film chief Jeff Robinov.

In addition, iQiyi, China's online video platform founded by China's largest online search engine Baidu, aims to meet the huge demand for popular Hollywood movies in China and has gained distribution rights for as many as 1,000 new U.S. film titles to be implemented in its service sometime in 2015.

Garcetti says he hopes the increasing amount of high-profile partnerships would help concerns among Chinese government. "It's not a cultural threat," he added. "Quite the contrary, it's an integration of our two societies, both on the cultural and economic front."

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