Terminator Says Hasta La Vista to Revenues as Propaganda Film Hits Offical Sales Targets

I saw this on social media a couple weeks ago and wasn't sure if it was real. Subsequent news confirms it. Movie studios were offered a higher share of ticket sales for the Chinese WWII movie The Hundred Regiments Offensive. The pictures below is the document outlining the terms, the third sheet below shows box office sales targets sent to the theaters before the movie was released.

Today's news: China Film Execs Claim 'Terminator' a Victim of Box-Office Fraud to Boost Propaganda Movie

Produced by a group of state-owned film companies to celebrate the WWII anniversary, The Hundred Regiments Offensive came from behind to dominate Terminator Genisys at Chinese box office for the week of Aug. 31 to Sept 6, grossing $39.40 million over Terminator’s $26.67 million, according to Beijing-based research firm Entgroup. But Regiments achieved its sudden surge from far fewer screenings than Terminator – 99,728 for Regiments compared with 250,435 showings for Terminator – suggesting that the government-backed movie either racked up a phenomenal per-screen average or there is more to the story.

...Plenty of film fans have taken Yu up on the offer. Since Regiments’ release, moviegoers have been circulating photos of suspicious tickets they received from Chinese cinemas. The photos show printed tickets for Regiments with screening details for other movies scribbled over them. Chinese bloggers cite the photos as evidence that cinemas are channeling box-office revenue away from Terminator and Huayi and Bona’s movies to prop up the results for Regiments. For example, when moviegoers ask for tickets to Terminator, cinema staff log the sale for Regiments while ushers rewrite the tickets by hand for the Terminator screening (some moviegoers have even posted videos of the process).

Here's the photo and video linked in the article, the movie name is crossed out and Terminator Genisys

For all Regiments tickets sold, CFD would allow cinemas to keep 100 percent of the revenue and would further reimburse them for the usual 8.3 percent in taxes Chinese cinemas pay on ticket sales. Typically, for a Chinese domestic film, the producer and distributor take as much as 43 percent of box office (Hollywood movies take a maximum of 25 percent of box office in China). Thus, cinemas were given a powerful financial incentive to sell as many Regiments tickets as possible – not to mention the official umbrage they might face for failing to hit their target.

It would have been much easier to get everyone to lie about the official numbers. Now it is far worse than a simple propaganda effort. Technically, the U.S. could probably file a complaint with the WTO or retaliate against China for doing this. It certainly will do nothing but help the rising tide of protectionism.

Detailed coverage in Chinese: 《百团大战》上座率不高却票房近亿，同档影片疑被“偷票房”