China’s Film Industry Is Bouncing Back & Open For Co-Production, But Lacks Diversity – Bridging The Dragon

deadline.com:

China’s film market is recovering, now the country’s cinemas and borders are open, and more films are being released, but producers and investors are playing it safe with a limited range of movies, said speakers at Bridging The Dragon’s annual Cannes Marche panel.

In the first session, ‘Is China Back?’, Chinese director-producer Lu Chuan (City Of Life And Death) said: “We have lots of talented and brave young filmmakers who want to make films – the problem is how do we encourage them to make more different types of films, and not only focus on comedies and family dramas.” One of the biggest trends at the China box office since cinemas reopened has been big-budget comedies, usually with top stars – films like the Detective Chinatown franchise and this year’s Godspeed, which grossed $136M (RMB959M) – have helped drive the country’s box office recovery.

China’s box office for the year to date passed the $3BN benchmark this week, which is 18% behind this point in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, but 43% ahead of 2022.  “Comedy is popular because it’s relaxing and safe,” said Lu, who is attending Cannes Marche with documentary Beijing 2022, about last year’s Beijing Olympic Winter Games. “But to mature as an industry we need to make a wider range of genres.” Lu, who has sci-fi film Bureau 749 in post-production, said that sci-fi is an interesting genre because “it helps us think about the future of humanity.” While comedies have always been popular in China, they’ve started to dominate in recent years, along with patriotic, state-sponsored blockbusters.

In addition to pandemic-induced cinema closures, the market has been grappling with a new censorship reality since 2018, when China’s film regulatory bodies were moved