The climbing of President Trump's trade tensions could put an end to Hollywood's ambitions in China.
After Trump threatened this week by Increase prices on the second most populated country in the worldThe Beijing Ministry of Commerce said it would “fight until the end”. According to Bloomberg News, two influential Chinese bloggers gave an overview of the actions that the Xi Jinping government was considering, including the ban on Hollywood films.
Such a decision would transport large entertainment companies to the first lines of the trade war. The prospect of losing access to Huge China film market Studios based in the United States have tried to get out of the financial holes created by the merger debt, the cocovide-19 pandemic, Hollywood work strikes and an expensive accumulation of movies and television broadcasts to store streaming services to compete with Netflix.
The studios already had trouble preserving traction for their films in China while this nation prioritized its local productions.
“They are trying to beat Hollywood,” said Stanley Rosen, a USC political teacher specializing in American-Chinese relations. “It becomes a patriotic problem (for China) as well as an economic problem.”
In recent years, US Studios fought Against an increasingly robust list of Chinese films with culturally attractive themes. The Chinese film industry has become able to produce films with high production values and support from the Chinese Communist Party, Leave less room for English language features It used to be successful in the market.
A light point came last week when the Warner Bros. And “a Minecraft film” produced by legendary images dominated the charts in China. The film, based on a popular video game with Jason Momoa and Jack Black, collected $ 15 million in China. He destroyed “Ne Zha 2”, a local animated functionality which brought back more than $ 2 billion.
“A Minecraft Movie” is just a fascinating of past glories.
Two decades ago, Hollywood Studios considered the so-called environment of the environment as a large market to exploit. The filmmakers have changed scenarios and added Chinese symbols and Chinese backgrounds to gain approval of the censors of the government and Chinese moviegoers. In a dramatic example, MGM in 2011 digitally rubbed a remake of the film “Red Dawn” to remove all traces of Chinese villains. Instead, the villains of the film were from North Korea, where there was no cinematographic market.
Hollywood raised great awards – for a while.
Walt Disney Co.'s successful film Marvel C. “Avengers: Endgame” has made more than $ 600 million in China.
The same year, Paramount Pictures published a first trailer for “Top Gun: Maverick”, with a slight change of wardrobe for the famous Tom Cruise fighter pilot. In the original film of 1986, Captain Fanfaron de Cruise, Pete “Maverick”, Mitchell wore a scrunned bomber with Japanese and Taiwan flags. But these symbols were considered too sensitive politically for China.
In the 2019 trailer, Maverick's jacket patches were ambiguous. But China has always refused to authorize the film, which celebrates American military power.
China Tencent Holdings, which is an investor in the co -producer of “Top Gun: Maverick” Skydance Media, would have been removed from the project. When the film was released in 2022, the Japanese and Taiwanese flags of Maverick were back.
Cinema leaders said this week that entering the Chinese market has become so tenuous that they no longer count on possible Chinese income when they establish production budgets.
Despite the challenges, two American films published last year in China managed to exceed $ 100 million in ticket sales, Rosen said: “Alien: Romulus” from Disney ($ 110 million in China) and Warner Bros. '“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” ($ 132 million).
This year, China’s greatest films have been local productions. “Ne Zha 2” is one of the most profitable films of all time. He also made a respectable touch in the United States, where he raised $ 21 million, including on IMAX screens, according to the Mojo box office.
Even if China does not prohibit all Hollywood films, experts predict a spectacular slowdown.
“For these films (the Chinese government) could accept, they will not promote them,” said Rosen.
American entertainment companies are preparing for additional fallout from the World War of Trade.
Economists and eminent bankers, including the director general of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, have warned that Trump prices could produce sustainable disruptive consequences, including prolonged inflation and possible recession.
Entertainment actions have been hammered, with the rest of the marketSince Trump unveiled the prices during his speech by “Liberation Day”.
Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Discovery were scrambled. Disney is down approximately 15% this month, while Warner Bros. Discovery has lost almost a quarter of its value.
“Disney parks and experiences generate most of its profits. A recession would probably depress tourism and reduce frequentation of Disney parks, “wrote Morningstar Matthew Dolgin's analyst in a note to customers last week. “Disney risks less of international tourism for the United States, especially Canada, due to cooling foreign relations.”
Warner Bros. Discovery tried to tame the more than $ 40 billion in debt he took care of when he acquired HBO, CNN and the “Barbie” studio based in Burbank three years ago.
“Many stocks of leverages are low, perhaps fears to tighten the credit,” wrote Dolgin.
Analysts said there could be a decline in television advertising in the midst of fears of a possible recession. This market, which is entering its “initial” sales key next month in New York, has already been wobbly after Netflix and the first Amazon video jumped on the advertising market previously dominated by traditional television networks. The wired channels, which have trouble keeping viewers in the middle of the cord cut, could be crushed further, analysts said.
The themed park attendance could be criticized if consumers tighten their portfolios. The prices come just a month before the Comcast nbcuniversal planned to unveil its theme park in the epic universe in Orlando in a bet of $ 6 billion on tourism in Florida.
The foreign agreement has already taken a hit. Last week, the White House said that the proposed sale of the popular Tiktok application to American investors in Chinese Bydance had been delayed in the middle of the commercial skirmishes.
The fears of national security encouraged the congress last year to adopt a law, signed by the former Biden president, to prohibit application in the United States, unless Bytedance has agreed to depart. The law was to start on January 19, but among its first movements, Trump extended the deadline.
Last week, The president signed another ordinanceallowing Tiktok to continue working for an additional 75 days.
In a silver lining for American entertainment production, a softer US dollar could make it more expensive to film abroad, including in Europe, which has attracted film and television for years. The weakness of the currencies could encourage studios to bring back their productions to the United States, although perhaps not in Los Angeles, where the cost of labor is high, said media leaders who were not allowed to comment.
