The Meg(Jon Turteltaub,2018).Now, no-oneis going to
claim this was a great film, but it grossedUS$153millionin
China and over US$377millionthroughoutthe rest of the
world.^9 The lessonto draw from this is that a Westernstar
(JasonStatham)and distributor(WarnerBros.)with a glo-
bal pipelineare still crucialto broad internationalsuccess.
However,this isn’t just a globalstory. It can be given
a particularlyAustralianinflection.The futurebegins
now,andChinais inevitablygoingtobea bigpartof
it. Australia’seconomicpatternshave changedas we
becomemore intertwinedwith China’seconomicgrowth,
and our major cities are evolvingas they becomehost
to large East Asian populations.But how our cinemawill
changeis still a matteropen to speculation.Gwo’sfilm
doesofferaninterestingcasein point,though.Oftheap
proximatelyUS$10millionthatTheWanderingEarthhas
grossedinternationally,Australiahasprovidedthesecond
largestamount.It openedday-and-datewith Chinaand
debutedat eighthplace on the Australianbox-officelist
despitebeingreleasedononlytwentythreescreens.Its
averagegross per screenwas three-and-a-halftimes
greaterthanEscapeRoom(AdamRobitel,2019),the
Hollywoodfilm that opened at number one that week
on over 200 screens.^10
TheWanderingEarthis distributedin Australiaby
CMC (ChinaMediaCapital),a Beijing-basedcompanythat
distributesChinesefilms in over fifty countries.^11 Thusfar
in 2019, it has releasedthree films in Australia,following
the six titles from last year.^12 Alongwiththeappearancein
Australiaofanotherinternationaldistributor,theTangRen
CulturalFilm Group– responsiblefor releasingfourteen
Chinesetitles here in 2018^13 – this raisesthe possibility
that Chinamight begin to developits own globaldistri
butionpipelines(thoughI suspectI am gettingaheadof
myselfhere, as CMC’sEnglish-languagewebsite^14 hasnot
even been updatedthis year). While Chinesecompanies
have been buyinginto productionand exhibitioncom-
panies– as DalianWandahas with Hoytsin Australia^15
- their industry’sabilityto sustain its own international
distributionis a vitalstep.
Thesefledglingforeigndistributioncompaniesjoin
locallybasedones such as ChinaLion, Magnumand
CineAsiathat have operatedfor some time by buying
Australasianrights to Chinesefilms. What we haven’t
seenyetis thedesireonthepartofanyofthesedistribu
tors to expandbeyondmarketingto diasporicaudiences.
More active,more local representation,the preparationof
English-languagepress kits and trailers,and the purchase
of advertisingin the mainstreammediaare all steps we
might expectto see as Chinesecinematakes a more pro-
minentplace on the world stage.The developmentof an
internationalstar systemmight be the start of this. Wu Jing
is the biggestname in Chinesecinemaright now, but he
still lags behindageingstars such as JackieChan in inter-
nationalrecognition.Thefutureis onitsway,andthese
are steps that might ultimatelypull the wanderingEarth
of Chinesecinemaaway from the Jupiter-like gravitatio-
nal pull of Hollywood.
MikeWalshis anassociateprofessorin theDepartment
of Screen and Media at Flinders University, Adelaide. m
Endnotes(^1) ‘International’,‘LiuLangDiQiu(2019)’,TheNumbers,
https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Liu-Lang-Di-Qiu
-(China)-(2019)#tab=international, accessed28 May 2019.
(^2) ‘BiggestFilmin a SingleMarket’,TheNumbers,https://
[http://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all](http://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all)
-movies/cumulative/single-market, accessed28 May 2019.
(^3) ‘Top 2019Moviesat the WorldwideBox Office’,The Numbers,
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/
all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2019, accessed 28 May
2019.
(^4) PatrickBrzeski,‘ChinaBox OfficeGrowthSlowsto 9 Percent
in 2018,TicketSalesReach$8.9B’,TheHollywoodReporter,
2 January2018,https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/
china-box-office-total-revenue-2018-1172725, accessed
28 May 2019.
(^5) See,forexample,RebeccaDavis,‘TheWanderingEarth
Is Leadingthe Sci-fi Chargeat China’sBox Office’,Variety,
14 March2019,https://variety.com/2019/film/asia/
wandering-earth-sci-fi-china-box-office-1203161818/;
and PatrickBrzeski,‘ChineseFilm SectorChartsa
Coursefor a Sci-fi Blockbusterto Call Its Own’,The
HollywoodReporter, 4 December2017,https://www.
hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/chinese-film-sector
-charts-a-course-a-sci-fi-blockbuster-call-own-1062774,
both accessed28 May 2019.
(^6) AndrewLiptak,‘China’sBlockbusterTheWanderingEarthIs
Comingto Netflix’,TheVerge, 21 February2019,https://
[http://www.theverge.com/2019/2/21/18234819/netflix-the](http://www.theverge.com/2019/2/21/18234819/netflix-the)
-wandering-earth-china-science-fiction-blockbuster-cixin
-liu-film, accessed28 May 2019.
(^7) See,forexample,SimonAbrams,‘TheWanderingEarth’,
RogerEbert.com, 15 February2019,https://www.roger
ebert.com/reviews/the-wandering-earth-2019, accessed
28 May 2019.
(^8) See, for example,StephenK Hirst,‘Wolf Warrior 2 , China’s
AnswertoRambo, Is a Mapof theNation’sFuture’,Salon,
18 August2017,https://www.salon.com/2017/08/18/
wolf-warrior-2/;andMaggieLee,‘FilmReview:Operation
RedSea’,Variety, 2 March2018,https://variety.com/2018/
film/asia/operation-red-sea-review-1202710157/, accessed
28 May 2019.
(^9) ‘TheMeg’, Box OfficeMojo,https://www.boxofficemojo.com/
movies/?page=intl&id=wbeventfilm2018.htm, accessed
28 May 2019.
(^10) ‘WeekendAustraliaChartfor February8, 2019(USD)’,The
Numbers,https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-chart/
weekend/2019/02/08/Australia, accessed28 May 2019.
(^11) See‘CMCPictures’,TheFilmCatalogue,https://www.the
filmcatalogue.com/companies/cmc-pictures, accessed
28 May 2019.
(^12) Sourcedby the authorfrom The Numbersand Box OfficeMojo.
(^13) Seethelistof 2018titlesontheTangRenCulturalFilmGroup
website,http://www.tangren.com.au/movies?years=2018,
accessed28 May 2019.
(^14) Seehttps://www.cmc-pictures.com, accessed28 May 2019.
(^15) FergusRyan,‘HoytsSold to ChinaCinemaGiantWanda’,The
Australian, 3 June 2015,https://www.theaustralian.com.au/
business/news/hoyts-sold-to-china-cinema-giant-wanda/news
-story/31b6c626ab4987242c23388af6b1d91d, accessed
28 May 2019.
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