Hollywood will China erobern

Die großen US-Filmstudios wollen sich stärker um den chinesischen Filmmarkt kümmern, schreibt die New York Times:

Like the rest of American industry, Hollywood has seen the future, and it is China. Some of the biggest movie studios are now scrambling onto the mainland and planning to invest more than $150 million over the next few years in China's burgeoning film industry. Walt Disney Pictures may even spend part of its legacy, with a plan for what some people involved say is a live-action martial-arts remake of "Snow White" that would be shot in China and replace the dwarves with Shaolin monks. The director is expected to be Yuen Woo-Ping, the Chinese director and choreographer who arranged the fight scenes for Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" series, as well as "Kung Fu Hustle" and the "Matrix" movies. Other studios intent on China include Sony's Columbia Tristar Pictures unit, which is already producing and financing feature films here. Time-Warner's Warner Brothers studio recently formed joint ventures to make films in China. And Merchant Ivory Productions' latest film, "The White Countess," set in 1930's Shanghai and starring Ralph Fiennes, was filmed on location here last year. A few weeks ago, Harvey Weinstein, the co-founder of Miramax Films and one of Hollywood's biggest producers, told a gathering at the Shanghai International Film Festival that the company he will run once he leaves Disney's Miramax will also produce and finance feature films in China. Drawn by China's fast-growing economy, inexpensive film production sites and its increasingly popular martial arts and feature films - most notably "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in 2000 - Western studios are stepping up their presence here and looking to eventually turn China into a major film production base.