Movie marketing is a complicated business, one that changes from country to country where cultural interests and aesthetic preferences differ. Still, I wouldn’t have said no to seeing these gorgeous Chinese posters forFantastic Beasts and Where to Find Themrolled out in the U.S.
The six posters were designed by Chinese artist Zhang Chun, and are inspired by traditional painting methods in the style ofgongbiand arranged in a traditional Chinese circular fan pattern. Each poster features a different magical creature, including the occamy, demiguise, swooping evil, niffler, thunderbird, and bowtruckle. (The niffler and demiguise are particularly beautiful.) The posters were gifted to theFantastic Beastscast, as well as directorDavid Yatesand producerDavid Heyman, during the film’s promotional tour in Beijing.
Hollywood is transitioning into an era of intense obsession with the Chinese box office, which some wrongly, yet enthusiastically predicted will pass the U.S. box office as the world’s most lucrative movie market sometime in 2017.
Despite the seeming overestimation of the Chinese box office’s exponential growth, it still represents a huge market for Hollywood films, especially for blockbusters that factor in international markets when justifying their massive budgets. Blockbusters likeFantastic Beasts.The Harry Potter prequel spinoff is currently making bank both domestically and internationally. It enjoyed a $40 million opening weekend in China, and its worldwide total now stands at over $610 million.
ThoughFantastic Beastshas not done as well in China as other recent Hollywood blockbusters, such asJason Bourneand the massively successful (in China)Warcraft, the country was primed for aFantastic Beaststakeover. According toGlobal Times, nearly 20 million people in China have bought Harry Potter books since the first three installments in the series were first imported to the country by People’s Literature Publishing House in 2000. The scriptbook ofHarry Potter and the Cursed Childquickly sold out its first run of 300,000 copies. These gorgeous posters probably didn’t hurt, either…
