After targeting private businessmen and government officials, China is now looking to control the sky-high paychecks of the country's highest actors and actresses through the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT).
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese media regulator is now preparing to launch a similar anti-graft action that would cover the country's top paid stars.
Highest Paid Artists
China is now looking into making the lavish lifestyles of actors and actresses after fan-favorite Fan Bingbing was named the world's fifth highest paid actresses in 2016.
According to Forbes, the Chinese actress who starred in some of Hollywood's box office hits like 2014's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" was paid $17 million in talent fee last year.
Aside from being the fifth in the world, Fan is also considered one of the highest paid in the local entertainment scene after being cast in the Chinese hit movies "Skiptrace" and "Lady of the Dynasty."
In 2015, a report from China Daily also took note of other actors who get high paychecks that appear to be limitless.
Among them is martial arts star Wu Jing of the series "A Time for Consequences." According to the report, Wu's performer value is expected to increase ten times as his talent fee was upgraded from 1 million yuan to 10 million yuan.
Cannes Film Festival award winner Tony Leung of Hong Kong is also among the highest paid actors in the Middle Kingdom whose paycheck increased from 30 million yuan to 45 million yuan last year.
Actor Paycheck Regulation
Because of this, the Chinese media regulator decided to launch "self-disciplinary convention" that would help the government crackdown on exorbitant star paychecks.
According to the WSJ, producers in the country had been complaining for years about the sky-high talent fees that actors and actresses have.
Apparently, the talent fees alone consume most of the projects' budgets that very little is left to use for enhancement of production and post-production efforts.
Talking to state broadcaster CCTV, Communication University of China professor Dai Qing revealed that it is important to have the actors and actresses' paychecks monitored and regulated, else the market would bubble out of control.
However, doing so can be very difficult considering that the demand is much higher than the supply, whereas the actors and actresses who "charge brutally" have been "spoiled" for years.
"Markets decide on capital issues. Honestly if you don't feature any hot young actors to boost the box-office receipts, you can hardly sell a film for one million yuan based on all these terrible homemade screenplays," a Sina Weibo user wrote in a post cited by the WSJ.