BEIJING (THR) -- Walt Disney Studios is co-producing a film in China for the first time in a move that signals the company's latest attempt to tap the country's potentially huge entertainment market, Disney executives said Wednesday at trade show CineAsia.
The live-action Chinese-language film "The Secret of the Magic Gourd," makes Disney only the third Hollywood studio after Warner Bros. and Sony's Columbia to produce a film in partnership with players from China's growing industry.
Disney's partners in the film version of the 1958 children's book are state-run China Film Group Corp. and Hong Kong special effects house Centro Digital Pictures, best known for work on Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill."
"We look forward to 'The Secret of the Magic Gourd' being the first of many local Chinese-language films that we make in China," said Mark Zoradi, president of Disney distribution arm Buena Vista International.
Disney and Centro are the larger equity partners in the three-way co-production with China Film, Zoradi said, adding that Centro CEO John Chu brought him the story in April and they signed a contract with China Film by mid-October.
The budget for the film was not disclosed.
Regulators of China's tightly controlled media market are especially sensitive to foreign entertainment aimed at children, and the communist leadership at the State Administration of Radio Film and Television insists that much of the content be made domestically.
Stanley Cheung, Walt Disney International general manager, said film co-production was just one of many businesses the company hoped to enter in China, holding up a Chinese-made Mickey Mouse mobile phone due to go on sale in China on Thursday for 3,888 yuan ($480).
Disney has branded stores across the country and opened Hong Kong Disneyland in September. Not long after, Disney chairman Bob Iger said a Shanghai theme park, and the investment that would come with it, might be linked to access to China's heavily regulated TV airwaves for the Disney Channel.
"We want to push very hard and go very fast with some businesses such as consumer goods," Cheung said on Wednesday. "With others, such as television and film, we know we must be patient."
But Disney won't let up pressure in any segment of the broader entertainment business in China, says David Wolf, of Beijing-based media consultants Wolf Group Asia.
"I expect that Disney will continue to push very hard to expand its television and film business in the PRC, and for many reasons progress will continue to be sluggish. Disney is only saying it will go slow with its media business in China in order to manage the expectations of its global stakeholders," Wolf said.
Zoradi said that "The Secret of the Magic Gourd" is based on a story by the late Chinese novelist Zhang Tianyi about a boy who learns the meaning of work after a magic gourd grants him anything he wants. It began shooting in the eastern China city of Hangzhou in October after two to three months of negotiations.
It was thought previously that Disney's first co-production in China would be "Snow White and the Seven Monks," an adaptation of a time-tested Disney franchise and Zoradi said the film is still in development.
Wolf said he believes going out with "Gourd" first is a wise move considering that some Chinese feel Disney strayed too far from the Chinese source material with "Mulan" the animated feature.
"To create such a property with Chinese partners would bring a lot of goodwill in China, and it could be an important tool in helping strengthen IPR enforcement," Wolf said, referring to the fight to stop production and sale of illegitimate DVDs of first run films for less than $1 a piece.
Hong Kong special effects supervisor Frankie Chung ("The Promise," "Kung Fu Hustle") will make his directorial debut on the film, which is produced by Doris Tse, managed by Centro, and supervised on set by Disney.
"Children will love this film and it is our hope that everybody will love this Chinese story," said Yang Buting, chairman and CEO of co-production partner China Film, the country's monopoly distributor.
China Film will distribute "Gourd" on the mainland, while BVI will handle Hong Kong and Taiwan distribution, Zoradi said. It has not been decided which Disney brand the film will take.
Though the film is in the Standard Mandarin Chinese language and its unnamed actors are from mainland China and Hong Kong and little known outside Asia, Zoradi said Disney hoped to take the film around the world with subtitled and dubbed prints.
"Gourd" is on track to finish principal photography in early 2006 and China Film hopes to see a nationwide theatrical release in China in the second half of the year, Yang said.
Jonathan Landreth writes for The Hollywood Reporter.
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