Marc Ganis, the president of Jiaflix Enterprises, suggests interesting things about Transformers 4 saying the story "has a great deal to do with China. Effectively, China is a character in it." Jiaflix Enterprises is essentially hoping to become the Netflix of China and is part of the "Cooperation Agreement" with Paramount to finance a portion of filming in China and Hong Kong that includes a Chinese only reality show to cast actors for the film. The agreement is part of a move to increase Hollywood's status in the country which is currently the 2nd largest movie market in the world and growing. So far actress Li Bingbing is the only Chinese actor cast for the film. However Ganis says, ""So much of the movie takes place in China and the character she plays is a Chinese national. So it's a very natural position for her to have." He also added that with Transformers 4 they are not going to have a China specific cut of the film (like with Iron Man 3, "There is going to be a single version (of the film) worldwide with a very significant Chinese component."
Taking his statements literally, it sounds like a majority of the film is set in China. This is fine if the story is good but the current filming reality seems to not match that stance. The core cast is not from China, the three to four months of filming is taking place in the United States, and a portion of Hong Kong set scenes are being filmed in Michigan. Considering most films (including the previous three TF films all took around 4 months to film, it doesn't seem to leave a lot of time for the China portion of the film if take the literal interpretation. I suspect what ultimately will happen is some event related to the story will take place in China in much of the same way that Revenge of the Fallen opened in Shanghai, China. The main difference is the TF2 scenes were filmed in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and this time it will be the real deal. Considering how little China has a part in the average Hollywood blockbuster film, even a 10 minutes or so segment would be considered "significant." Below is a video of the interview. Thanks to Wynton R. for the links.
Like mentioned in the article, almost all of the filming will be done in the States with an American cast and they are even gonna build a Hong Kong set in Michigan!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke, the Chinese part in the movie will be very minimal. At least the filmed part that is. And it will not mostly be set in China, it'll mostly be set in the States I think.
Why arent they filming that Hong Kong set in Michigan actually in....... Hong Kong??? If they want to please the Chinese (film)market, that's the way to do it.
And why do they have a Chinese reality show to find actors?? What a hoax and waste of time. Don't they have actual actors in China??
I'm still glad there will be no Chinese cut with some stupid product placement, like in Iron Man 3. Man, that's a slap in the face of movie makers and the movie business.
Why not completely reboot the series the last one felt uneven with the autobots not getting enough screen time, no more dumbass humans just stick with autobots and decepticons
ReplyDeleteDetroit set construction has started in the same lot that Paramount used to store the props from T3. If anyone wants any pictures to post on the blog, feel free to email me at jbarton@wyan.org. I believe at least part of this set to be one of the Chinese scnes as the facade of the one building definitely looks Asian to me. Anyway, I'll be swinging by there every now and then to check out the set process and will definitely submit more pics if anyone wants them. I can't wait for filming to begin!
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