Photo: Ren Zhonglun Source/Interviewee Courtesy of photo
"In 1997, the annual output of domestic films was 87, 82 in 1998; in 1999, 102, the box office was less than 1 billion yuan that year, and the number of screens in the country was about 3,000. It can be said that Chinese films were at the lowest point in history at that time. No matter in terms of production capacity, quality, and audience attendance, it is completely impossible to compete with the United States and other world film powers. But the 'wolf' still came. Ren Zhonglun, vice chairman of the China Filmmakers Association and chairman of the Shanghai Filmmakers Association, had not yet officially taken over the film group at that time, but he still remembered the huge pressure and challenges faced by Chinese films before and after joining the WTO. But 'Dancing with wolves,' we're active. At that time, the only choice for Chinese films was to force reform with opening up, and also to meet real opening up with real reform. ”
Stress is high and embraces change
"After joining the WTO, we increased our imports from 10 films per year to 20 (in separate accounts), and then the supplementary agreement was signed, and it has always been 34. Films like Pearl Harbor, Mission Impossible, and so on came in. At the beginning, the box office of imported blockbusters accounted for almost half of the annual box office, which means that the box office of hundreds of domestic films added up to just a tie with 20 imported blockbusters. Ren Zhonglun said that the pressure is very large, the stimulation is also very large, "the first stimulus is to the audience and the market, many years of not walking into the cinema audience slowly developed the habit of watching movies, stimulating the construction of cinemas." ”
Today there are more than 12,000 cinemas and about 74,000 screens in the country. "But at the time, we didn't even have a joint venture cinema." By joining the WTO, China promised to gradually liberalize the ownership of foreign investment in the construction, renewal, ownership and operation of cinemas within three years, and allow foreign parties to own no more than 49% of the controlling rights. Therefore, in the first year of Ren Zhonglun's inauguration as president of Shanghai Film Group, in July 2003, Shanghai Film announced that it would cooperate with Warner, one of the eight major film companies in the United States, and China's first joint venture cinema Shanghai Yonghua Film City opened its doors at Grand Gateway Plaza. ”
After Heroes, blockbusters rose
In those years, the market warmed up and the policy relaxed. We have opened the door and embraced world cinema, and private capital has increasingly participated in the Chinese film industry, gradually becoming a new force and main force in production. "I personally think the real turning point is Zhang Yimou's 'Hero'. Before that, we had not invested more than 100 million yuan in a domestic film, and even our investment in domestic films throughout the year was only equivalent to the investment amount of a super blockbuster in the United States. ”
Released in December 2002, "Heroes", from the early planning and preparation, the star system of genre films, to the shooting and production, and finally the publicity and distribution, presents a market-oriented film operation paradigm that is completely in line with commercial laws. Within two months of its release, "Hero" reached 250 million yuan at the domestic box office, which was the top Box Office of Chinese films in 2002, and the final global box office totaled 177 million US dollars (about 1.4 billion yuan), and was also nominated for the Academy Awards and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. "To some extent, 'Hero' is a milestone in the industrialization of Chinese films, providing a replicable model for later Chinese commercial blockbusters." Ren Zhonglun said that in the following years, driven by domestic blockbusters, China's film industry was thriving.
To become a strong country, there is still a long way to go
After 20 years, we have the largest number of screens in the world, and have become the world's second largest film market after the United States, and domestic blockbusters have repeatedly easily crossed the box office threshold of 3 billion, 4 billion and 5 billion. In the past 5 years, films such as "Wolf Warrior 2", "Hello, Li Huanying", "Nezha's Devil Boy Descending", and "Wandering Earth" have conquered the market with different themes and rich genres, and the audience has exceeded 100 million people. "Chosin Lake", which is currently being screened, has become the world's first box office film this year with 5.414 billion yuan.
At present, there is only one foreign blockbuster in the top ten films in the box office of Chinese film history, but it is this one that Makes Ren Zhonglun feel that we have a long way to go from a film power to a film power. "Behind Avengers: Endgame is Disney. The film grossed $2.798 billion worldwide, and in 2019, Disney produced seven films that year, grossing more than $11 billion worldwide, not counting Disney's huge profits in other parts of the film industry. The film enterprises with the largest scale of Chinese film operations often have annual operating income of about 10 billion yuan and net profit of about 1 billion yuan. This undoubtedly has a big gap and gives us a lot of room for improvement. Ren Zhonglun said that we need to create a group of good films with global influence, but also to build a group of strong and competitive film enterprises, "because this is the mainstay of building a film power." ”
Sun Jiayin, chief reporter of Xinmin Evening News