Article Summary #3

“Avatar” Outsells China’s “Confucius”

LaFraniere, Sharon, “Chinese Zeal for ‘Avatar’ Crowds out ‘Confucius,” New York Times, January 29, 2010

The movie “Avatar” has been extremely popular in China and has been competing fiercely with “Confucius,” a domestic film. Although Chinese officials said “Avatar” would be removed from 2-D movie screens when “Confucius” was released, the popularity of the American-made movie has kept it on 2-D screens.

According to Stephen Teo, an associate professor of broadcast and cinema studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, it would be a “commercial folly” to pull “Avatar” from movie screens in China. While “Avatar” brought in around $4.8 in revenue in its first three weeks on screens in China, “Confucius” only averaged $1.8 during its first three days.

China permits 20 foreign films to be shown on local screens each year. Revenue is divided among local distributors, producers, and theaters. Industry sources say Chinese distributors can buy the rights to show other foreign films without having to split profits with producers. These few foreign movies compete with an increasing number of domestic films each year. In 2008, more than 400 Chinese films were released. But “Avatar” has definitely come out on top in its competition with “Confucius” and other Chinese films.

Chinese theaters showing “Avatar” have been sold out every day since the release of the movie. Additionally, mountain peaks in a national park in Hunan Province were renamed, as officials said they were identical to the “Hallelujah” mountains in “Avatar.” Chinese media criticized the renaming, claiming the officials were forgetting their cultural roots. The officials countered that the move would bring increased tourism to the park.