My wife complains bitterly that she cannot go see the movie here in the Netherlands. According to [1],
> As there are currently no screening plans in Western European countries like the UK and France, some netizens have even spontaneously formed groups to travel to Greece for a screening.
Is this lack due to European movie distributors, or to the Chinese publisher?
It's mostly a business decision and I'm guessing they will try to push into new markets if they think they can get some traction. This may convince them that they can. I know that Akira convinced anime studios that there was a market outside Japan.
They don't seem to have any issue selling their movies, animated series, comics and novels in other countries. In fact, they are being quite successful exporting their video-games recently. They are way more successful in their local market than abroad, but that's true for almost any cultural product.
I liked the 2019 Nezha even though it came across as a bargain-basement Dreamworks movie complete with fart jokes.
(Got a Blu-Ray set of an Investiture of the Gods TV series that allegedly had English subtitles but it doesn't. It's not like Japanese where I have 30% comprehension of the spoken language, I read Chinese better than I can understand it spoken but that's not saying much, I can pick out things like 来来来 (lái lái lái) which means 'come over' but that's about it.)
It kind of is the Chinese equivalent of a Marvel movie. No criticism intended though, it does that well. The 2023 Chinese film Chang'an is a better choice if someone is looking for a modern animated Chinese film with some adult depth.
Blair Witch Project had ~$250 million box office on less than a million dollar budget including marketing (>250x) but the record holder is probably Deep Throat (1972) which had a box office of $30-50 million on a budget of $50k (>600x).
That the record holder is rape porn I think says a lot about our civilization.
Cost is a big issue for Hollywood. Recently we have learned about "flopbusters": movies that made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office and yet were failures, because hundreds of millions still wasn't enough to cover the astronomical production and marketing costs.
To cover their costs, studios are chasing wider and wider audiences, having to please more and more people, which unfortunately makes lowest-common-denominator slop the safe choice.
My wife complains bitterly that she cannot go see the movie here in the Netherlands. According to [1],
> As there are currently no screening plans in Western European countries like the UK and France, some netizens have even spontaneously formed groups to travel to Greece for a screening.
Is this lack due to European movie distributors, or to the Chinese publisher?
[1] https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202502/1328274.shtml
Taking this opportunity to recommend to everyone "Deep Sea" (深海), a 2023 Chinese animation film with wonderful art direction.
It looks terrific!
How can you watch this? Online at a major streaming provider? And, are there subtitles?
I found it streaming for free on VUDU.com / Fandango
I see it, thanks!
It is terrific - but I warn you it is a tear-jerker.
It has been going through many film festivals - but there is still limited distribution outside of China.
A bellwether. I wonder if China will want to export their culture like Hollywood, or if they will be content to keep to themselves.
It's mostly a business decision and I'm guessing they will try to push into new markets if they think they can get some traction. This may convince them that they can. I know that Akira convinced anime studios that there was a market outside Japan.
They don't seem to have any issue selling their movies, animated series, comics and novels in other countries. In fact, they are being quite successful exporting their video-games recently. They are way more successful in their local market than abroad, but that's true for almost any cultural product.
I liked the 2019 Nezha even though it came across as a bargain-basement Dreamworks movie complete with fart jokes.
(Got a Blu-Ray set of an Investiture of the Gods TV series that allegedly had English subtitles but it doesn't. It's not like Japanese where I have 30% comprehension of the spoken language, I read Chinese better than I can understand it spoken but that's not saying much, I can pick out things like 来来来 (lái lái lái) which means 'come over' but that's about it.)
Nezha 2 still has fart jokes (and a sequence involving a joke about bodily fluids), but the quality of the animation is now top notch.
Yeah, unlike the amazing script quality of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever", et. al.
It kind of is the Chinese equivalent of a Marvel movie. No criticism intended though, it does that well. The 2023 Chinese film Chang'an is a better choice if someone is looking for a modern animated Chinese film with some adult depth.
What's even more impressive is that they've done this with an 80M USD budget.
It is probably the movie with the highest ROI ever at ~25x (and counting).
Blair Witch Project had ~$250 million box office on less than a million dollar budget including marketing (>250x) but the record holder is probably Deep Throat (1972) which had a box office of $30-50 million on a budget of $50k (>600x).
That the record holder is rape porn I think says a lot about our civilization.
Cost is a big issue for Hollywood. Recently we have learned about "flopbusters": movies that made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office and yet were failures, because hundreds of millions still wasn't enough to cover the astronomical production and marketing costs.
To cover their costs, studios are chasing wider and wider audiences, having to please more and more people, which unfortunately makes lowest-common-denominator slop the safe choice.
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