Hollywood and Huallywood: The Opportunistic Strategies of Cooperation, Competition, and Adaption

• In Event: Understanding U.S.-China Coproduction: Theory, Policy, and Industry

Abstract

This article seeks to analyze the evolving relationship between Hollywood and Huallywood since the turn of the century. Borrowing from the stakeholder theory in enterprise management and drawing on the theory of communication ecology, the article argues that the irreconcilable structural imbalances and contradictions overshadow the interactions and collaboration between Hollywood and Huallywood. While Huallywood attempts to integrate into Hollywood-dominated global capitalist film production system and seeks to collaborate with Hollywood at multiple levels from production to exhibition, Hollywood also tries to adapt to the Chinese environment. Various stakeholders, such as investors, producers, theater chains, film festivals, critics, audiences and policy makers, influence the interplay between the two. Hollywood and Huallywood thus court each other, share common economic interests, and compete in discourse politics. Consequently, an opportunistic survival mode persists for both sides, profoundly affecting the future direction of Sino-US coproduction and policy-making.

Author

• Jinghua Yuan, Zhejiang U