Disney teams with Tencent to try and make Star Wars popular in China

Back in the 1970s and early 80s, America was being swept away by George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy. The Star Wars fans made during that time became lifelong devotees, passed their passion on to the kids, and Star Wars became entertaining royalty.

Not so in China. The original trilogy never aired there, and although the prequels came out in the region, interest in them was tepid at best. The same could be said of the current sequel trilogy — The Force Awakens raked in $124 million in China, which is decent but well below the kind of numbers this franchise posts in the west — while movies like Rogue One and The Last Jedi brought in peanuts.

There just aren’t many Star Wars superfans in China, which worries Disney because China is the most populous country in the world and represents an increasingly vital share of box office take. These days, Western studios are even tailoring their movies to do well in China. For example, did you know that Disney shot a subplot with Chinese characters for Iron Man 3 that wasn’t in the version of the movie released elsewhere?

Basically, cracking the Chinese market is important because money, and Disney will do anything to make it happen. To that end, it’s partnering with Chinese multinational giant Tencent — specifically with China Literature, the nation’s largest e-books and online reading platform — to license and distribute 40 translated Star Wars novels for Chinese readers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That’ll include novelizations of the original trilogy as well as a mass of extended universe books, including Timothy Zahn’s popular “Thrawn” trilogy.

China Literature boasts 217.1 million monthly active users, so people will see this. Disney will make Star Wars popular in China like Mickey’s life depends on it.

In addition to the licensed books, which will be free to read during a promotional period through October 22, Disney and Tencent have tapped an extremely popular Chinese author who writes under the pen name “His Majesty the King” to write a new, officially authorized Star Wars story starring a Chinese hero, one that will “combine native Chinese elements and the narrative style of Chinese literature to tell the story of Star Wars,” according to a press release. “We hope that more Chinese readers will be exposed to the Star Wars story, helping Star Wars renew its vitality in China,” said CEO of Literature Wu Wenhui this week.  James Waugh, vice president of franchise content and strategy at Lucasfilm, also weighed in:

"It is really exciting to be able to embark on a journey to define the Star Wars narrative for the vast number of Chinese readers. We hope that in the future, we will have the opportunity to present more fascinating Star Wars stories and content experiences to Chinese readers, gripping them with the spiritual core of the Star Wars brand."

As implied above, none of this is particularly surprising. Disney is a company that makes money, and if you want to make money with your very visible entertainment brand, you need it to be popular in China. It could potentially get dicey, though. The Chinese government keeps a very tight hold on the kind of media it lets its people see, and lately there have been several high-profile stories about popular western brands running afoul of the government and basically causing international business incidents. I’m thinking of the furor that resulted when Daryl Morey, General Manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted his support of the protesters in Hong Kong, and video game giant Blizzard getting in trouble for banning Hearthstone players who show their support.

Obviously, Disney has no intention of causing any kind of incident. But neither did Blizzard or the NBA, so…we’ll see.

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But for now, it’s clear sailing. The original Star Wars story is still in development.

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