Headlines from China: Tencent Pictures to Promote James Cameron’s ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ in China

Official First Look at the Women of the New TERMINATOR (from left to right) Natalia Reyes as “Dani Ramos,” Mackenzie Davis as “Grace,” Linda Hamilton as “Sarah Connor”

Tencent Pictures to Promote James Cameron’s ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ in China

On March 24, at Tencent’s “UP2019” Conference, Tencent Pictures CEO Cheng Wu announced the company’s upcoming films. One of the highlights on the list is Terminator: Dark Fate, the latest film of the “Terminator” series by James Cameron. Tencent Pictures co-finances and co-produces the film, which is a trilogy of stories. Terminator: Dark Fate has been set to release on November 1 in the U.S. In China, Tencent Pictures will provide marketing support to the film’s theatrical release. In addition to Terminator: Dark Fate, a few other highlights include: The Tibet Code, which is based on the popular novel of the same name; A First Farewell, the Best Film at the 69th Berlinale Generation Kplus section to be released in this summer; and Guan Hu’s 800, the first Chinese feature filmed with Imax digital cameras. Read more on Mtime

Tencent Pictures’ Three Directions

Recently, Tencent hosted an event in Beijing to introduce the company’s recent achievements and future directions in the cultural and creative sector. Cheng Wu, VP of Tencent and CEO of Tencent Pictures, stressed the importance of innovation and how it is helping Chinese cultural heritage become a part of today’s pop culture. Cheng Wu also pointed out three directions for Tencent Pictures: first, closely follow the happenings in the society to tell great Chinese stories; secondly, further explore global market and facilitate the export of Chinese content; lastly, work closely with Tencent’s other departments, such as online literature, anime and gaming, as well as other partners outside Tencent, to develop Chinese IPs that have global influence. Read more on yiqipaidianying

China’s Regulators to Tighten Control Over Ancient Costume Dramas 

At the beginning of this year, several ancient costume dramas gained popularity in China. But now they have to say goodbye to the audience. Recently, China’s media regulator set a new policy to suspend broadcasting ancient costume dramas including web series, TV series and web movies from now through June. The new policy will likely put some production companies and streaming websites in a tough situation. This is not the first time that the government regulates this type of content. Back in 2015, the authorities set policies to limit the airtime of ancient dramas on TV, which led production companies to sell their shows to online video platforms in stead. Read more on entgroup.com