Western film producers and investors are eyeing co-production with their Chinese peers to explore huge business opportunities.

This comes after Hollywood movies are no longer big hits in the world's most populous country where China-made films have been rising from obscurity.

Dan Glickman, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, told Xinhua Wednesday in Shanghai that he hoped that more US film companies would come to invest in and shoot movies in China.

"It is Chinese film resource that attracts me, especially the stories," Toby Simkin, a Broadway producer, said Wednesday at the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival that ends on June 21.

Chinese film market saw robust growth last year even in the economic downturn, lifting its box office into the world's top ten for the first time.

Its overall box office reached 4.3 billion yuan (US$628.9 million) in 2008, up 25 percent from a year earlier, according to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).

During the period, home-made movies contributed to 69 percent of the box office and they outperformed imported ones for the sixth consecutive year.

"Nowadays people are eager to watch homemade and Chinese-language movies," Han Sanping, chairman of China Film Group Corporation, told reporters.

"U.S. films have seen their box office fall in China over the past six years, and fewer of them could earn 100 million yuan in box office returns each," Han said.

Chinese films, however, saw a rising box office in the period, he said, adding that eight China-made movies had box office of more than 100 million yuan each.

Han predicted that China's total box office would jump to 30 billion yuan to 35 billion yuan in 10 years.

The mainland and Hong Kong have seen co-production yield fruitful results. And now the cooperation is expanding, even with policy support from the Chinese authorities.

Tong Gang, director of the SARFT's film bureau, said the co-produced movies are the key to the success of Chinese film industry.

But there are also worries that co-production will help U.S. film companies gain a dominant position in China.

Gordon Chan, chairman of Hong Kong Film Awards, said that the Chinese film industry should be wary of losing home market to the U.S. film industry in five years to 10 years.

There, however, are supporters of such cooperation.

"We do not need capital, but need market. That is why we co-produce movies," Wang Zhongjun, CEO and chairman of Huayi Brothers, told reporters.

Huayi Brothers has made investment in 'Forbidden Kingdom', a 2008 American martial arts-adventure film starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li. It was the first Chinese film company to invest in a Hollywood movie and gained film distribution rights in the greater China region.

The film soared to the top spot in its debut week in the United States and broke the box office record by overseas films with US$128 million.

"It's a win-win deal," Wang said.

Co-production may offer a good way for Chinese culture to meet foreign audience by presenting famous Chinese figures, counterparts of Superman and Terminator in Hollywood movies.

Julian Alcantara, an American producer, showed his optimism toward Chinese films going outside.

"Co-production is definitely not the only way for Chinese films to go outside," he told Xinhua. "It's China who decides to make movies to whom."

(Xinhua News Agency June 21, 2009)