Jeff Shell (Photo : Reuters)
Universal Filmed Entertainment is set to increase its movie co-production and consumer products sales in China while expanding its co-distribution efforts, Universal Pictures chairman Jeff Shell announced during the opening of the NBC Universal's Beijing office.
Attending the official launch makes Shell's sixth visit to China where he was accompanied by Universal's international distribution president Duncan Clark and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.
The idea to open the office came after Edko Films of Hong Kong producer Bill Kong had represented Universal in China. The new office will pitch and submit Universal movies to the Chinese regulators under the leadership of Joe Yan, a veteran Disney executive who was hired in June.
Other functions of the office are to manage Universal's consumer products group and to create strategic goals for Universal parent company NBC Universal and Comcast. This includes the Universal theme park worth $2.5 billion that the company is currently building in the Beijing suburbs.
Shell told Variety that the company has big ambitions in China.
In an interview in downtown Beijing with The Hollywood Reporter, Shell pointed out that China is "a more exciting market than it is a difficult market."
As compared to India and Southeast Asia, Shell said that China is a less difficult and it is "just point growth." He noted that the Chinese market has a "heritage of entertainment" and an organized system "where the rules are defined by which you can make money."
Despite the "quota and other things" in the Chinese market, Shell said that it is "not as difficult as more emerging markets where you don't know how you get paid for your movies or how you distribute them."
According to Shell, the Chinese market is so defined and organized that many competitive companies are compelled to participate in.
Shell believes that the fast growth of the Chinese market can make China surpass the U.S. at some point and "the pie is so big that there is growth for Hollywood movies."
