Security guards stand near a model of a fighter jet from the Star Wars movie franchise displayed in Beijing, China, Friday, Dec. 11, 2015.
What makes a Hollywood franchise a hit in China? Walt Disney needs to know.
Disney has unleashed a marketing campaign in China to sell "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" when the latest in the nearly 40-year-old movie franchise comes to the world's No. 2 movie market on Jan. 9. The campaign is aimed at an audience that largely missed the "Stars Wars" phenomenon and has trouble telling Jabba the Hutt from Jar-Jar Binks.
The good news is that whiz-bang science-fiction stories with lots of special effects do well in China. Still, not every franchise translates to the country's increasingly discerning audience.
This photo provided by Lionsgate shows Liam Hemsworth, left, Sam Clafin, back left, Evan Ross, back right, and Jennifer Lawrence, right, in the film, "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2."
“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 2," the latest installment in the dystopian series by Lions Gate Entertainment, has grossed a modest 143.4 million yuan ($22.2 million) since it opened on Nov. 20, according to Chinese film data company EntGroup. “Our Times,” a Chinese-language romantic comedy released the day before the latest installment, has grossed more than two times that. That is also less than the previous "Hunger Games" installment, which was released earlier this year in China, with ticket sales of about 225 million yuan.
By contrast, "Mockingjay -- Part 2" has been ruling the U.S. box office since it was released, raking in $245 million so far, according to Box Office Mojo.
The slump came despite a visit to China by star Jennifer Lawrence, who is liked there and even has the nickname "Da Biaojie," or "big elder cousin sister." Still, the four "Hunger Games" installments have grossed a total of about 715 million yuan in China so far.
In this image released by 20th Century Fox, Jenny Gabrielle, from left, Dylan O'Brien and Rosa Salazar appear in a scene from the film, "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials."
Other Hollywood film franchises adapted from young adult books also haven't done as well. Two installments of the teen vampire melodrama "Twilight," screened in China in 2009 and 2012, grossed nearly 40 million yuan in total. The first two installments of Fox’s “The Maze Runner”, which is released in China last year and this year, raked in nearly 348 million yuan ($53.76 million) in China, compared with $183 million in the U.S.
Optimus Prime, from the worldwide blockbuster film "Transformers: Age of Extinction" is unveiled at a ceremony in Hollywood, California on September 30, 2014.
Chinese audiences like big-budget tent poles with special-effects, with a simple good-guy-beats-bad-guy plot. Paramount's "Transformers: Age of Extinction" was China’s highest-grossing film in 2014. The "Transformers" franchise is helped by having some familiarity to Chinese people who were young in the 1980s -- a cartoon version was shown on TV then and was so popular that it was criticized by government officials.
"Star Wars'" abundance of robots could help too. China’s love for mechanical figures has even helped films that underperformed at home, like Warner Brothers’ “Pacific Rim” (2013), which grossed a little more than $101 million. It grossed about $112 million in China. "Terminator Genisys" (2015), the sci-fi action film featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, a big name in China, grossed $113 million in China, compared with $89.8 million in the U.S.
This photo provide by Disney shows Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in a scene from Marvel's "Avengers: Age Of Ultron."
Superheroes help too. What local film types call the "man" movies -- "Spider-Man," "Iron Man" and "X-Men" -- have mostly done well.
"The Avengers" films -- which pack the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and assorted other people with special powers into each film -- have especially done well. The two installments of "The Avengers," which opened in China in 2012 and 2015, grossed more than 2 billion yuan ($310 million) in total. "Avengers: Age of Ultron" is the second-highest-grossing foreign film this year. "X-Men: Days of Future Past" and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" were among the top-10 highest-grossing films in China last year.
This photo released by 20th Century Fox shows Matt Damon in a scene from the film, "The Martian."
Though not as solid at the box office as some domestic comedy films, which nowadays could easily pass the 1 billion yuan threshold in ticket sales, Chinese audiences still turn out to see sci-fi dramas. Fox’s “The Martian,” featuring Matt Damon, so far grossed about 576 million yuan after it opened in China last month. “Interstellar” raked in more than 755 million yuan in China as the second-highest-grossing foreign film in 2014. The director Christopher Nolan came to Shanghai last year, fostering a fan base in China that developed after his “Inception” (2010) grossed over 462 milion yuan in 2010, the second-highest-grossing foreign film that year.