BEIJING — Walt Disney signed a co-production deal with China’s DMG Entertainment to produce its next “Iron Man” film in China, the two companies said Monday, highlighting the nation’s draw for the global entertainment industry.
Disney’s China division and Marvel Studios, which created the “Iron Man” film series and was acquired by Disney in 2009, will work with DMG to film “Iron Man 3” in China for release in May 2013.
Stars from the “Iron Man” films, including Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, will return for the third installment, Dan Mintz, founder of DMG Entertainment, a 19-year-old movie studio headquartered in Beijing with offices in Hollywood, said at a news briefing.
Disney is revving up its efforts to gain favor with China’s growing middle class, which is spending more of its disposable income on trips to the movies and other forms of entertainment.
The Burbank, Calif., company’s chief executive, Robert Iger, has said that he has big ambitions for China, including in film, television and retail. Disney announced last week plans to form an animation incubator in China with internet company Tencent Holdings and the state-run Ministry of Culture’s China Animation Group that would curate local talent and help nurture a Chinese domestic animation industry.
Disney is also still planning to open a theme park in Shanghai in 2015 and broke ground last year after a decade of negotiations.
China’s movie industry is rapidly expanding. The nation’s box-office revenue in 2011 climbed to about 13.1 billion yuan ($2.1 billion), up about 29 percent from the 2010 level, according to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
That compares with weakening box-office revenue in the US and Canada, which dropped four percent to $10.2 billion in 2011 compared with a year earlier, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.
Mintz declined to answer questions about the size of the investment in the film. “Money is a small thing for us for this film,” he said.
The first and second “Iron Man” films combined made more than 271 million yuan at Chinese box offices during their release in the country, according to film research company EntGroup.
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