The world collectively freaked out when Disney dropped the first trailer for its upcoming live-action adaptation of Mulan. Despite the lack of Mushu, no “I’ll Make A Man Out Of You“, or any indication that it’ll have musical bits, it was a gorgeous trailer that highlights just how much of a badarse Liu Yifei’s Mulan is.
However, one can’t help but feel something is “off” with the trailer and the character of Mulan. Compared to all the joy and emotion found in the 1998 animated classic, this new take just seems… cold.
The Guardian‘s Jingan Young says that this version of Mulan appears to pander to China’s nationalistic agenda and they’re not wrong in that assumption. The 1998 animated film flopped in China upon release so it’s pretty clear that Disney are trying to avoid that problem again by making it more appealing to Chinese audiences.
Some would say this is selling out a film’s creative vision in order to make more money and, well, they’d be completely correct. In fact, Disney are far from the only Hollywood studio to pander to the Chinese market with its blockbusters.
The Chinese film industry is absolutely booming right now, with experts putting it a close second to the US in terms of projected box office earnings for 2019 (about $12 billion vs $11 billion). In fact, these experts are predicting it to topple America as the biggest moviegoing audience by 2020.
As China emerges as a moviegoing market equal to the US but with potential for far more growth – there’s well over 1 billion moviegoers in China compared to the mere 300 or so million in the US – Hollywood studios are making big moves in order to get a slice of that Chinese movie pie.
This is why we’ve seen increased marketing in Asian markets, different edits of films and more big name actors going to Chinese cities to plug movies in recent years: there’s a LOT of money to be made there.
For context on just how increasingly important China is for a movie’s bottom line, about $600 million of Avengers: Endgame‘s $2.7 billion box office gross came from Chinese audiences alone. Yeah, that’s a lot of dosh.
It goes beyond PR stuff as we’re starting to see more Chinese influence on the creative side of things due to an increasing number of American/Chinese co-productions or production partnerships of some kind, like The Meg and Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
This all looks like Hollywood is selling what’s left of its soul for some extra moolah in China and that’s a pretty accurate assumption. But the numbers don’t lie and it all makes sense from a money-making perspective, even if it means sacrificing things like creative freedom for a touch of Chinese pandering.
It remains to be seen how this all plays out and how movies will ultimately be affected but don’t be too surprised to see more Chinese influence – for better or worse – on your cinema choices over the next decade or so.