The Great Wall had a tough time unspooling, starting out with Edward Zwick as director, with Hong Kong entrepreneur Kelvin Wu as co-financier in Legendary East with Thomas Tull. Once the euphoria of tapping into what then seemed like limitless funds wore off, producers and writers began to realize that maybe making a movie that worked in both markets was a far more challenging prospect than it looked. We are still waiting for most of these projects, such as Marvel supremo Stan Lee’s The Annihilator or X-Men creator Tom DeSanto’s Gods. In those heady days, it seemed like everyone was developing a massive-budget co-production with China, and previously rational, gimlet-eyed investors rushed slates of monster movie blockbusters that would equally thrill the fanboys of Main Street and Mianyang. I remember writing stories back in 2011 about the genesis of The Great Wall when I worked for Variety, stories that continued after joining The Hollywood Reporter. Hollywood and China’s commissars have always made for strange bedfellows, but have they finally figured out how to beget viable offspring? Will other major stars follow Damon’s example and act in films that promote Beijing’s message? Will American audiences watch them? Will Chinese? Can propaganda ever make for a real blockbuster? Or will the powers on both sides someday relent and let a director like Zhang make the kind of nuanced human dramas that made his name in the first place? -The Editors The movie may be backed by a Hollywood studio and it may star no less an American icon than Matt Damon, and yet it proffers China as the source of military might and moral right. monsters tale, director Zhang Yimou has brought America the most expensive Chinese film ever created.
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