Author/Fei Joker Editor/Wu Lixiang
First published: Entertainment Capital (yulezibenlun)
Last Thursday's domestic release of "Hacksaw Ridge" has reached 164 million at the box office, and this figure is still being updated.
Associated with a series of sighs released by the person in charge of Fang Xiyi Pictures before the introduction of the film, "There is no good schedule, no time to market, no IMAX version, no black heart to do 3D, no money to make up for tickets, no way to make up for the film on Friday, the film is still so long, and the ticket price is cheaper than others." At present, under the unfavorable circumstances of all parties, it should also be an unexpected surprise that relying on word of mouth to win hundreds of millions of box offices.
The film was a delight at the box office, but so did the controversy behind the film.
Another Chinese company called Kirin Pictures suddenly jumped out to entertainment capital theory that its wholly-owned subsidiary kylin Pictures participated in the joint production in the form of investment, and when it was released in North America, there was still a company name in the subtitles of the movie, but to their surprise, in the subtitles of the current domestic release version, kylin pictures actually "disappeared", and at the same time, they had issued a lawyer's letter to the US side and began to collect evidence.
Screenshots of regional versions, the chinese version on the far right
The domestic copyright of "Hacksaw Ridge" belongs to Xiyi Pictures, which is said to be the full copyright of the Chinese market, and the Shanghai company has always claimed to have rich Hollywood resources, but the disputes and controversies surrounding this company have not stopped. In early October, the company was embroiled in a contract dispute with a Hollywood company. [Click on the link to review: Xiyi Pictures involved in Hollywood disputes: "abandoning" American producers, American lawyers looking for media rights protection]
For this matter, Fan Xuezheng, vice president of Xiyi Pictures, responded that Kirin Pictures and Xiyi did not have any transactions, and the name of Kirin Pictures disappeared in the subtitles in China, which was a problem with them and the American production company Cross Creek Pictures, "Xiyi is a company that does things seriously, and hopes that the other party will not borrow us to hype." At the same time, he also said that Xiyi was the first company to participate in the investment, "far earlier than Qilin "."
Qilin Pictures lawyers said today that the fact that it can be confirmed at present is that the North American version has the signature of Qilin Pictures in the main subtitle at the end, and the Chinese version does not have a signature, while Although China Film Import and Export and Huaxia Distribution are the importers and distributors of the buyout films, they mainly accept the material of the promotion company, and the subtitles do not focus on review.
"The right of attribution is a very important right of investors, Kirin Pictures has conducted important consultations and struggles with foreign parties on the right of attribution when investing in the film, if there is a global authorship right in the investment agreement and the Chinese version deletes the signature, it is very rare."
A lawyer in the line said that if the contract has content, it should be followed, and in the cooperation between Chinese and foreign companies, especially in this spirit of contract, in order to establish trust.
The Chinese investor whose subtitles are inexplicably missing
This may be a problem that the general audience rarely notices, "Blood Battle Hacksaw Ridge" on the second day of release, Kirin Pictures' director of strategic development department vivian told Entertainment Capital that in the domestic version of the signature area, Kylin Pictures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kirin Pictures, is missing, "We have contacted the notary office to do notarization, confirming that the chinese release of this version, the subtitles do not have our family's name." ”
According to vivian, Kirin Pictures signed a contract with the American production company CCP to participate in the investment of "Hacksaw Ridge". CROSS CREEK PICTURES (Chinese known as Cross Creek Pictures) is an independent American production company that has produced more than 13 films to date, including Black Swan starring Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp's Black Mass. CCP is the first producer of Hacksaw Ridge.
It is reported that Kirin Pictures and CCP reached a long-term strategic cooperation, the current signing of cooperation between the two sides of a total of two works, in addition to "Hacksaw Ridge", there is a 2017 release, Tom Cruise starred in "Made in America", "We are holding the mentality of learning and pilgrimage, participating in the CCP project." ”
Vivian said that as a Chinese company, it is honored to participate in the investment and production of this Kind of American Hollywood film, when it was released in North America, the company's personnel also went to see the film, when the company name Kylin Pictures appeared in a very prominent position in the North American version, how did it get to its own home field in China, but there was none? "It's unacceptable, both from a business point of view and emotionally." She was thrilled to say that.
Vivian also revealed that the proportion of investment in this film is not low, "otherwise it will not appear in the main signature area, and enjoy the same attribution rights as producers, directors, actors, etc." ”
Entertainment Capital inquired about the English film website IMDB, and the page of the film shows that Kylin Pictures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kirin Pictures in the United States, does appear in the production company column as an association with. At the same time, Kylin Pictures also appeared as a funding in the Other Companies column.
In the production company column, the domestic copyright holder Xiyi Pictures also appeared as a co-producer (in association with), but did not see the word investment.
Generally, Chinese companies involved in the investment will enjoy the right to distribute, but why did Qilin, which claims that the investment ratio is not low, not get the domestic distribution rights of this work?
Vivian's explanation is that this is related to the company positioning of Kirin, she said, Kirin's positioning is to do high-quality content producers, the main body is a production company, distribution is not a strong point, so "there is no need to go to the big package." Qilin Pictures was founded by Pang Hong, the producer of the movie "Painted Skin" and "Painted Skin 2", and interestingly, he was previously publicly collected by the "Ip Man 3" company Kuailu Group.
Because there was no direct contractual relationship with the domestic copyright owner Xiyi, Vivian said that instead of questioning Xiyi, he sent a lawyer's letter to the American production company CCP, asking for an explanation of the matter.
The contract provided by Kirin Pictures is in Both Chinese and English.
The person in charge of Kirin Pictures also translated this lawyer's letter to CCP and global distributor IM Global with Entertainment Capital. It is written that according to the contract, Kylin Pictures, a company owned by Kirin Pictures, obtains the global attribution right of co-production in the subtitles of the film, and the font size should be the same as the signature size of the main production unit. The lawyer's letter also stated that joint production is the most important contractual purpose, and without this signature, this agreement will not be signed.
Film global distribution, to each country, according to the local laws, censorship or local characteristics of the culture of appropriate deletion and adjustment is the norm, "but the contract expressly stipulated that the right of attribution is deleted is not the norm", the person in charge said, Hollywood practitioners often due to the wrong font, the size of the font is not right, whether it is independent of a page, etc. to the court, because the signature not only has international practices and industry standards, but also should follow the spirit of the contract of film industrialization.
Vivian also said that Hollywood attaches great importance to the issue of signatures, and the incident of signatures affects their credit judgment of a company or even a country-specific entity, "so our letter and rights protection behavior is understood and supported by them." As of press time, Vivian told Entertainment Capital that the matter had been accepted by the CCP, revealing that "the other side also felt incredible, and the lawyers of CCP and IMG have made a request to Xiyi, a distribution distributor in China." ”
Who moved the subtitle signature of Kirin?
Fan Xuezheng, vice president of Xiyi Pictures, responded that as the producer of the first investment project in China, he had never heard of Qilin Pictures investing in this film, "it should be a very small part." At the same time, he said that the financial situation of Kirin Pictures, in addition to the founder Pang Hong is being chased by Fast Deer, and tom Cruise, who cooperates with CCP, is also looking for buyers. However, in which link of Qilin's signature is in question, he said he would not comment.
"Hacksaw Ridge" is produced by Bill McNicole, who once worked at Twentieth Century Fox, and Han Wei, CEO of Xiyi Pictures, said in a public interview that she served as Bill McNicole's assistant producer. It is said that Han Wei helped Bill McNick raise funds to shoot his company's first independently produced film "Ghost Mother" when he was in difficulty, and it was through this cooperation that the cooperation of "Hacksaw Ridge" was reached.
As for why the name of the subsidiary of Kirin Pictures disappeared, what is going on behind it? An unnamed whistleblower said that this may be related to Kirin Culture's claim to withdraw kirin film brand licensing statement in August this year.
In August this year, Beijing Qilin Network Culture Co., Ltd. (Qilin Culture) issued a statement saying that after The Incident of Qilin Network Film and Television Culture Media Co., Ltd. (Qilin Pictures) and its legal spokesperson Pang Hong being chased by Kuailu for 250 million yuan, it caused significant goodwill losses to Qilin Culture. According to the previous agreement, from August 4, the authorization of the relevant brand name of "Qilin Network" will be cancelled in accordance with the law, and Pang Hong and his related companies will be required to change the name of the "Qilin Network" company and stop using the "Qilin Network" brand name.
Hacksaw Ridge
Kirin Pictures' response to this is that this matter has nothing to do with "Hacksaw Ridge". "And this August statement is not true." According to Kirin Pictures, in April 2015, Kirin Culture signed an equity transfer agreement with Kirin Pictures, which clearly stipulated that Kirin Culture agreed to Kylin Pictures' use of the abbreviation of the word Kirin, and the equity transfer agreement has covered the previous authorization signed above. "To put it bluntly, after the equity transfer, the name Kirin Pictures has nothing to do with Kirin culture from now on."
Qilin Fang told Entertainment Capital last night that it received the latest feedback from the CCP on this matter, and Xi Yi replied to the CCP, saying, "The subtitle problem is due to government review, and relevant documents need to be provided to support it in order to be approved by the corresponding signature." ”
Qilin Fang said that it had tried to contact the department responsible for the import and export of the film, and the first reply it got was that there was no relevant request on the company signature of the film.
Qilin Fang said that China Film also said that according to the general process of introducing films, what is currently received is the DCP (digital film package, commonly known as the master disk) provided by Xiyi, which is approved and translated by the translation factory, and the finalized version is then given to the theater. Qilin alludes to whether Xi Yi has done "hands and feet" on the subtitles of DCP.
So far, will this bid for the right of signature be related to the box office split? But what the current entertainment capital theory understands is that "Blood Battle Hacksaw Ridge" uses a quota of films, that is, a popular buyout, and the domestic box office revenue belongs to Xiyi, and Qilin does not have a share of box office revenue.
An industry insider who has been doing the introduction of foreign films for a long time said that although there is no box office rights in China, this company is currently obsessively grasping the rights and interests of global signatures, and may want a Chinese local exposure, especially in the current "Blood War Hacksaw Ridge" in the case of good domestic box office and word of mouth, the exposure is a good PR for the company.
The industry insider also said that Xiyi, as the owner of all copyright in China, is actually equivalent to the film party in China, according to the introduction practice, as long as the United States agrees, it has the right to deal with subtitles, but the previous practice is that the films released in China are more subtitled and added content, but it is rare to delete the signature like this, especially if the other company still belongs to the investor. If it is true as Kirin Pictures said, it can be speculated that the subtitle changes of the Chinese version are not allowed by the American filmmakers.