Bob Violence

It doesn't open until Tuesday. Any idea what the technical problem was with Iceman? I assume it was an actual technical problem, and not a "technical problem" in the Django Unchained sense...

Subscribing to the "too smart to be funny" school of comedy, I guess. I've been seeing marketing for this out the wazoo (naturally, since my regular theater is a Wanda) and they must be saving all the jokes for the actual film. If anything it looks like it's trying for an Inception vibe.

Sounds like both of these are being misleadingly marketed. The marketing for Iceman mostly makes it seem like a straightforward action/fantasy film (it's apparently more of an action comedy) and the marketing for The Great Hypnotist makes it seem like a dour drama.

Just read that Rigor Mortis is being recut (again) in the hopes of a mainland release Here's an idea: Naked Ambition 2, Mainland Edition. Get on it, fellas.

He has a ten-part series on Cinemax sometime this year. Not a movie, obviously, but he directed every episode.

I never claimed IM3 wouldn't have gotten in without DMG. Every single Marvel Studios film has gotten in (even Incredible Hulk) and there's no way IM3 would've broken that pattern. But again, it wouldn't have gotten a day-and-date holiday release, it wouldn't have broken the opening day record (which was pretty much contingent on a holiday release), it wouldn't have gotten the ridiculous amount of publicity it had (for example, it was very prominently featured on TV, which is something you don't see much with Hollywood films), and it wouldn't have had a five-week run. The "Chinese elements" weren't sufficient to qualify it as a full co-production, but it was money spent in China and the Film Bureau was hardly unaware of that. Having Fan Bingbing (who's better known in China than any of the Hollywood cast) also meant tons of free PR. Whether those additions ultimately hurt Marvel's image is an unknowable hypothetical, but I don't see it. For some casual viewers it was a goofy novelty that might've convinced them to see something they wouldn't have normally seen, and fans understand it was a one-off and that Huang Xiaoming wasn't going to suddenly pop up in Thor 2. I'm also not at all clear on how DMG bungled Looper, which is hardly blockbuster material and would've normally struggled to get any Chinese release. Instead it was released during a usually protected holiday period and ended up at #2 against four high-profile competitors, finishing just slightly behind Taichi Zero (which meant Looper had higher attendance, since Taichi had 3D and IMAX). If you're referring to the dollar-yuan mixup in the box office reporting, that was down to Endgame and Sony—I never saw anything that implicated DMG in it. Transcendence, yes, they bungled the Depp visit, but given the toxic WOM on the film itself, it was a dicey release no matter what. The day-and-date release surely helped, since there was less awareness of the negative reception in the U.S. Whether it was worth it for DMG I can't say, since I don't know what they put into it, but I doubt the Depp visit was a big factor simply because I doubt the average moviegoer is even aware of it. If DMG fucked up, it's because they backed a movie that sucks and was pitched as a Johnny Depp movie when it's really more of a Rebecca Hall-Paul Bettany movie. As for TF4, it's in the same boat IM3 was: the question was never if it would come out in China, the question is when and under what conditions. As a co-production (whether it qualifies for "official" status or not), it's looking at a day-and-date release in late June. As a non-co-production, we'd have a possible late August release alongside god knows how many other belated summer blockbusters.

TDW and CA2 were both regular quota imports with no Chinese co-production involvement. I haven't heard anything about future co-productions from Marvel, but if the Chinese market keeps going the way it is, I'm sure they'll attempt another one sooner or later.

Zhang Yimou's Coming Home is now a May 16th release, so Godzilla is definitely out of mid-May and probably out of May altogether.

Iron Man 3 was a buyout because of the co-production angle. Marvel/Disney gave up whatever share they would've received from a revenue-shared release in exchange for DMG kicking in a chunk of the budget. I read somewhere (probably here, heh) that it was around $20m, but I don't think that's an official number. This is presumably what happened with Transcendence as well. DMG isn't involved with Transformers 4 but I imagine the basic arrangement is the same, just with different partners on the Chinese side. As for "a ton of $," I assume DMG made a nice profit on IM3, but it would depend on how much of the budget they actually contributed, how much of the gross they were able to get, and how much they spent on marketing and distribution. Bear in mind that IM3 wouldn't have made as much without DMG's involvement (for example, it wouldn't have received a holiday release, it wouldn't have gotten a five-week run, and it wouldn't have had such a big marketing push), so you can't just say "well shit, IM3 made $120m in China, so Marvel would've earned more than $20m if they'd released it as a regular quota title." It wouldn't have made $120m as a regular quota title. And even if Marvel didn't come out ahead in dollar terms, it was good for their brand in China.

firedeep said in December that Ender's Game was a quota release. I'd think Transcendence is a buyout since it was picked up by a local company (neither WB nor Summit are even mentioned in Chinese version of the film). I am curious what the final quota for 2013 was, since Snowpiercer didn't get released until March and I've read it ended up being a buyout release.

Possibly from here: http://forums.boxoffice.com/index.php?/topic/678-china-box-office/page-586#entry1345596

A somewhat rambling Variety article with a tidbit on something I was hoping to see in the lineup: So did they reject it, or did they screen it so late that they couldn't make a decision before the announcement? This interview with Thierry Fremaux also hints that Abel Ferrara's Welcome to New York could still show up.

Faith Akin pulled The Cut from the festival for "personal reasons," but scuttlebutt is it was actually because he insisted on being in competition and the festival wanted to give the German slot to Christian Petzold's Phoenix. (It's been long enough since Cannes had two German films in competition that it seems to be a matter of policy. They're not much keener on Italian competition entries, so festival politics with Berlin and Venice might be at work.) The fact that neither film is in the announced lineup leads me to think they're trying to work something out.Maybe Wang Xiaoshuai's The Intruder will be added too, since it apparently wrapped back in November and I think his last Cannes entry Chongqing Blues was also a late addition. The Golden Era is out because the Chinese release was moved from May to October (Ann Hui is more of a Venice regular anyway, she hasn't been at Cannes in decades). Chinese films are often late additions to festival lineups because of issues with the Film Bureau, or at least that's what I've heard. Of course I'm zero for nine if you look at my guesses on page one, so you should probably ignore me.

Well, that didn't go well: various media outlets here (including CCTV, Hunan TV, and Sina.com) are claiming events and interviews they had set up through DMG (the Iron Man 3 people, who are releasing Transcendence here) were canceled at the last minute. Probably the most significant from a PR perspective was a fan meet-and-greet with a bunch of fans already gathered at the venue. Supposedly DMG never informed Depp's camp about these "commitments." There are also claims that DMG swiped some of the ideas for the canceled events, like a guitar performance and a calligraphy "lesson." On top of that people had trouble understanding Depp at the Q&A because of translation and equipment problems. Lots of angry microbloggers and critical news coverage out there. There may be more to the story, but this is how it's being presented at the moment. The good news is that few people blame Depp himself, but the bad news is that his film's Chinese distributor is being flayed alive and Depp's first visit to China is basically a PR debacle.

This article from Time seems to be more accurate. It notes that The Passion of the Christ was released in Indonesia even though Jesus is also considered a prophet.

Not the first time they've done that sort of thing with an animated film. Tons of cartoons are released with the title "xx总动员" (roughly "xx mobilization") because that pattern is commonly used with Pixar films (Toy Story = 玩具总动员 "Toy Mobilization," Finding Nemo = 海底总动员 "Undersea Mobilization," Cars = 赛车总动员 "Racecar Mobilization," etc.). Free Birds was released a few weeks ago as 火鸡总动员 "Turkey Mobilization," Animals United was released as 动物总动员 "Animal Mobilization," there was a local film a couple of years ago called 熊猫总动员 "Panda Mobilization" (= Little Big Panda), and the domestic Happy Little Submarine franchise is called 潜艇总动员 (you can probably guess what that means). At this point I don't think it really fools anyone into thinking they're seeing a Disney/Pixar film, it's probably just seen as a default title for cartoons.

This will be the opening film at next month's Beijing Film Festival. Doesn't guarantee it'll get an actual Chinese release, but the two previous openers (A Separation, and, uh, Monsters University) did.

There's a notorious black comedy script that's been kicking around Hollywood since the mid-'90s called The Sky Is Falling, about a couple of priests who go on a murder/sex/drug spree after discovering evidence that God is literally dead. Not surprising it's never been made, especially when you read script reviews online suggesting it makes Natural Born Killers look like kiddie stuff. Too bad, since it'd probably make a bizarre double feature with God's Not Dead.

China expected to confirm second distribution licenseNot sure how "seismic" this will actually be, especially since the new licensee is apparently a newcomer to the film biz. On the other hand that might be a point in their favor from Hollywood's perspective, since CFGC is heavily involved in domestic films and doesn't have much incentive to push imported movies. I also wonder if this presages the quota expansion that was reported (and denied) or month or two back—expanding the quota would be a decent reason to loosen CFGC's grip on imports.

It's the movie firedeep referred to earlier in the thread as Fighting. As far as I can tell, it's a wartime martial-arts story with no connection to the old John Woo flick. The original Chinese title was the same as the Chinese title of the Woo film, but they changed it before release.

Korean and French Blu-rays come out next month. The Korean version will even work on U.S. players with no problem (since Korea and the U.S. share the same region code). And most Radius releases are simultaneous theatrical and VOD, though there have been exceptions.

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Did they specify that the theatrical rights had been sold? TV and streaming rights are a big business here too. That said, they usually release a handful of French films every year and this seems like a good candidate for one of those slots.

Mr. Peabody and Sherman and, uh, Monuments Men are now set for the 28th. I also just noticed that Donnie Yen's Iceman (another long-delayed big-budget SFX extravaganza) has been pushed back from April 4th to sometime in May—presumably around the May 1st holiday—and the other local films opening around Qingming look pretty underwhelming. Maybe that's why TWS was able to get such a good date?

No surprise here, but Chinese media says that Zhang Yimou's Coming Home is basically confirmed for the competition and that Zhang and the studio are already preparing for the trip out to France. The Chinese release is currently set for May 27th.