Pasadena Bank Pushing for Closer China/Hollywood Ties

Pasadena-based East West Bank is leading a campaign for collaboration between Hollywood and China film studios, where the Chinese could benefit from understanding how to distribute pictures internationally, and the U.S. partners could produce films in China for Chinese moviegoers.
The Hollywood Reporter in a recent report said Bennett Pozil, East West Bank Executive VP and Head of Corporate Banking at East West Bank, believes the incentive for collaboration has never been stronger.
Recently, East West Bank helped facilitate Beijing-based Perfect World Pictures’ $250 million investment in a slate of Universal movies and Chinese studio Huayi Brothers’ 2015 pact to produce at least 18 films with Robert Simonds’ STX Entertainment.
“From China, a lot of the companies want to better understand how to distribute pictures internationally,” the Reporter quotes Pozil as saying. “This is something the [U.S.] studios are excellent at.”
As for the studios, Beijing relationships aren’t only about securing market access.
“Now it’s also very much about co-investment in local production,” says Pozil. He said the Chinese cinema market is on pace to surpass North America as the world’s largest box office in 2017.
On June 13, Pozil and other influential cross-border dealmakers – including Perfect World president Rong Chen and Lindsay Conner, co-chair of Manatt’s entertainment and media practice – will join Winston Baker’s fourth annual Film Finance Forum China in Shanghai, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The executives will share how partnerships came together and discuss emerging distribution models, global talent management opportunities and derivatives channels.
“It took some time to get both sides to have a greater understanding of one another,” says Pozil. “But once one or two deals happened, it created confidence. Now folks on both sides are saying, ‘This is happening, and we need to be a part of it.’ “