Why the Curtain Is Falling on Chinese Investment in Hollywood
Chinese investors are likely to continue eyeing up overseas motion picture projects — except this time, they’ll have more seasoned perspectives. Chinese director Zhang Yimou and American actor Matt Damon flopped with their $150 million film collaboration, “The Great Wall,” earlier this year. The motion picture was supposed to mark the debut of a new Hollywood, one featuring not only American stars, but Chinese luminaries too — a perfect union of American marketing know-how and Chinese financing. But the result didn’t live up to all the hype. Worryingly, the failure of “The Great Wall” is now becoming a major barrier to future Chinese investment in Hollywood, film industry insiders say. The movie’s Chinese investors are heading up the aisles and out of the movie theaters with nowhere near the 15 percent returns they were promised. “There’s a return to sanity in investing in Hollywood for Chinese investors,” says Larry Namer, co-founder of American cable channel E! Ent...