Hollywood Made in China

China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 ignited a race to capture new global media audiences. Hollywood moguls began courting Chinese investors to create entertainment on an international scale—from behemoth theme parks to blockbuster films. Hollywood Made in China examines this compelling dynamic, where the distinctions between Hollywood’s “dream factory” and the PRC’s “Chinese dream” of global influence become increasingly blurred. Using ethnographic research that took the author to the sets of film productions in Beijing, Shanghai, and Los Angeles, coupled with interviews with top CEOs, directors, and key film workers, Aynne Kokas provides a detailed analysis of Sino-US media collaborations and the impact they have on the global media industries. Kokas’s work is the first to deeply explore Hollywood’s investments in branded content across platforms in China. What she found impacts everyone who consumes commercial media in the twenty-first century.

Aynne Kokas is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and a nonresident scholar in Chinese media at the Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University.