With Kung Fu Panda 3, DreamWorks’ Chinese gamble looks like it’s starting to pay off
The American animation studio’s joint venture with the mainland has scored its first hit, with more in the pipeline – a sign of the growing creative and economic connections between Hollywood and China
Few Hollywood executives have invested as much in China’s film business as Jeffrey Katzenberg.
The head of DreamWorks Animation took a gamble in 2012 when he and his partners launched Oriental DreamWorks, a US$330 million joint venture that was the first of its kind.
That bet could pay off handsomely for the Californian studio, with the release last month of the third instalment of the popular Kung Fu Panda franchise simultaneously in mainland China and the US. The film opens in Hong Kong next month.
The film is projected to become a global hit for DreamWorks Animation – which has had a dearth of them in recent years – and strengthen the company’s foothold in a country that is on track to become the world’s largest film market by 2017.
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The making of Kung Fu Panda 3 is emblematic of the growing creative and economic ties between China and Hollywood. Produced by a team of American and Chinese artists in Glendale, California, and Shanghai, Kung Fu Panda 3 is the first movie to be animated in two versions so that the characters’ speech syncs up with English and Putonghua.
