When Xi Jinping headed to the United States earlier this year in what everyone assumed was a pre-coronation victory lap, one of the more surprising outcomes of his visit ended up being a stopover in Los Angeles, where China agreed to increase the number of Hollywood films released in mainland theaters each year and significantly hike the percentage of box office revenue allocated to overseas producers.
With these pledges finally beginning to take effect, Jeremy Goldkorn hosts a special look at the state of the Chinese film industry this week in an episode of Sinica that features two veterans of the Chinese media scene: Will Moss from Imagethief and Jonathan Landreth, a Beijing-based freelance media and entertainment reporter who has written for major American publications ranging from The New York Times to the Hollywood Reporter. In a long and wide-ranging discussion, all three talk about China’s on-again-off-again relationship with Hollywood, discuss China’s new concessions and what they mean for the cinema industry, and ask how the rise of the Internet and digital distribution is affecting box office sales and the prospects of Chinese entertainment companies both at home and in foreign markets like the United States.