De Facto Chinese Censorship of US Films

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian at Axios:

China's box office is projected to soon surpass the U.S. as the largest film market in the world.

• "Access to that market can make or break the success of a major Hollywood film," said James Tager, the author of a recent PEN America report about how the Chinese government censors the U.S. film industry, and how the industry responds by self-censoring.
• But the Chinese government tightly controls access to the market, excluding films that include content it dislikes, and blacklisting individual actors or film studios that have previously participated in activities the Chinese Communist Party doesn't like.

...

Movies also have an almost unmatched ability to instill widespread public sympathy for vulnerable groups and to prolong remembrance of crimes against humanity, such as the Rwandan genocide, depicted in "Hotel Rwanda."

• But the last time a major Hollywood studio made a movie that presented a vulnerable group as the victim of Chinese government aggression was in 1997 with "Seven Years in Tibet" starring Brad Pitt.
• The Chinese government responded by slapping a five-year ban on Columbia TriStar, the production company that made the film — a response that cast a chill over the U.S. movie industry.

The result: Film studios now go out of their way to ensure their movies avoid topics or depictions of China that might fall foul of China's censors.

• "The most significant effect of this censorship and self-censorship is completely invisible, because it involves the movies that are never made," said Tager. "What major Hollywood studio would make a movie about what is happening in Xinjiang, with the internment of over a million Muslims?"
• “For 10 years, you haven’t seen any bad Chinese guys,” said Schuyler Moore, a partner at Greenberg Glusker. “If I saw a script with an anti-Chinese theme, I would advise my client that that film would never be released in China.”

Tax Incentives for Movie Shoots

Our chapter on federalism explains how states use tax breaks and other incentives to compete for business. Variety reports that Iowa recently lost movie location shoots when it suspended its production tax credit.

Incentives don't need to be eliminated or scaled back to scare away production. These days, producers start looking at other locations as soon as a governor indicates a desire to tinker with a tax credit.

"What the industry always wants most of all is certainty," says California Film Commission director Amy Lemisch. "They want to know what they're going to get, what the rules are and that they won't change."

California got an added bit of certainty last month when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law extending the state's $100 million-a-year tax credit through the end of the 2014-2015 fiscal year.

New Mexico wasn't so lucky. In January, Gov. Susana Martinez came into office vowing to drastically scale back the state's popular incentive program, which had attracted such big-budget films as "Cowboys & Aliens" and "Terminator: Salvation."

In the end, the state preserved its 25% tax credit and added a still-generous $50 million annual cap. But the damage was done.

"For first eight months of the new administration, nobody really knew what was going on, so therefore the number of pilots and (other projects) is way down from what it usually is," says Lance Hool, CEO of the newly opened Santa Fe Studios. In the meantime, "the money for the rebates sits there, waiting to be used."

Federalism and Film

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Texans are bombarding the governor's office with calls and letters to try to stop tax dollars from subsidizing a satirical film about a vengeful illegal immigrant.

The coming film, a bloody action movie with a star-studded cast titled "Machete," could be eligible for more than $1.5 million of taxpayer subsidies under a program designed to encourage directors to shoot in Texas.

The state Film Commission may deny subsidies to any production that includes "inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion." But the commission—eager to woo as many movie, advertising and video-game shoots as possible—has never exercised that clause. "You have to understand that we want to create jobs," said Bob Hudgins, the commission's director. "That is our focus."

The story points to a contemporary issue of federalism. States like to attract film production because it generates jobs and business. They compete with one another to offer support and benefits to film companies. Here is a list of state film commissions. Here is a report from the National Governors Assocation.