The industry has chanted this mantra for years with little to show for it. But just as China appeared to be opening up a little to American popular culture, the Walt Disney Co. last week got a sharp reminder of what a Long March still lies ahead when Chinese officials threatened Disney with unspecified business reprisals if it went forward with an upcoming film on the Dalai Lama.
The Magic Kingdom had quietly known for months it was running afoul of the Middle Kingdom, and last month, news reports began to appear. But the company didn’t have a true PR problem until the story hit the front page of The New York Times. Chinese officials warned that Disney’s production of Martin Scorsese’s movie “Kundun,” about the deposed Tibetan demigod, might jeopardize the company’s plans for expansion in China. The bureaucrats have clammed up since, but such comments usually reflect thinking at the highest levels.
For Disney it was a classic quandary, in which one corporate agenda imperils another seemingly distant one. In this case, one smallish motion picture–which won’t even be released in China–was getting in the way of the company’s global strategy. Disney has more at stake than any other studio: its animated characters leap cultural boundaries easily, especially in Asia, and China represents virgin territory not just for Disney’s current offerings but for its entire library of “classics,” which have been so widely recycled here and in much of the rest of the world. The possibilities in films, TV, publishing, merchandising and theme parks are staggering.
At first Disney tried to distance itself from the film, saying it was merely a small investor (this was disingenuous: Disney money launched the film). Then Disney officials huddled in a high-level meeting and, with the sound of editorial-page pencils sharpening in the background, decided to issue a statement saying it would abide by its agreement to distribute the movie in the United States. Hollywood’s “creative community” hailed the decision. Said Sharon Stone: “It was never my feeling that [Disney] would crumble to this kind of terrorism.”
Disney, of course, had little choice. The movie is already shooting in Morocco, and to dump it would cause a firestorm. These days such decisions are best made pre-emptively, when no one’s the wiser. Who can say why a studio “passes” on a project? Maybe it was just a crummy script. Projects about sumo wrestlers (offend the Japanese) and clear-cutting of redwoods (timber executives with powerful friends) are among those that have been rejected, but who knows why?
Similarly, it’s not known whether Disney thought about the implications when it green-lighted a picture lionizing a figure whose portrait Chinese soldiers rip off walls and stomp on. It all started, as these things do, with the deal, and with the protagonist of most Hollywood dramaturgy these days, Michael Ovitz. Once the Zen master of the industry, Ovitz lost some of his aura when he stopped being a talent agent and joined Disney as president. How could Ovitz–known for his passion for Asia and his many trips there on Disney’s behalf–not have realized the dangers? Last June he met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, as theme-park possibilities loomed closer. Ovitz wouldn’t comment on the controversy over Tibet.
But it was Ovitz himself who picked up “Kundun.” When he took his new job, he signed up a few high-profile former clients for Disney, a practice he later backed away from because it gave the appearance of big-footing the movie division. One such client was Scorsese, perhaps the most critically revered film director of his generation. Though no Scorsese film had ever grossed $100 million in the United States, studios still want to be in business with him, partly because of the prestige he confers. The trick with legends like Scorsese is to let them do their pet projects–cheaply, if possible–and in return ask them to do something more commercial. Scorsese’s projects had been problematic before. Universal Studios’ long relationship with the director produced “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which resulted in protesters outside the then studio chairman Lew Wasserman’s home, in a flap with nasty anti-Semitic undertones. Universal took the heat, and Scorsese later directed the moneymaking “Cape Fear” for the studio.
By late last year, however, Universal was under new management, and in the wake of Scorsese’s underwhelming “Casino,” executives were reluctant to bankroll a $30 million-ish movie about a Tibetan religious figure. Universal, too, has business in China: it is actively competing with Disney in seeking to lease land for a theme park, and parent company Seagram sells a lot of whisky and cognac in Asia. Was that part of the mix, as some maintain? The studio says China wasn’t a factor. After Universal passed, Ovitz agreed to fund “Kundun,” paying $10 million to extricate Scorsese from his agreement with Universal, and got several other Scorsese projects in the bargain, including a possible TV movie for Disney’s ABC.
If Disney didn’t know how explosive this project would be for the Chinese, it got a hint last spring when Scorsese tried to scout locations in Tibet and was turned down. In May Disney took the rare step of lessening its exposure to the movie–both financially and politically–by selling off the foreign rights to the film in every territory except the United Kingdom. Disney executives also were notably absent from a banquet this summer to benefit the Dalai Lama hosted by Richard Gere and Harrison Ford (whose wife, Melissa Mathison, wrote the “Kundun” script).
Disney’s caution was well placed: the Dalai Lama is a transcendently sensitive subject. Though the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950 and the lama has been living in exile since 1959, just this year hundreds of Tibetan monastics have been forced to attend “re-education” sessions.
Entering China has been an endlessly frustrating experience for U.S. entertainment companies. Beyond China’s Great Wall resistance to outside culture, it’s hard to make a buck. Until recently, the Chinese wouldn’t even share revenue from foreign movies. Instead they’d pay a flat fee of, say, $20,000 for movies that often made that much at a multiplex in Cleveland on opening weekend. Meanwhile, China is cracking down on its own filmmakers, calling for artists to “serve the masses” by producing patriotic and moral works. “In China, movies are part of the political game,” confides a prominent Chinese producer. “They are not meant to be for fun.” And the Disney experience in China demonstrates that Hollywood’s pilgrimage to that audience-rich promised land will require even more delicacy than anyone imagined.
