China’s HGC Entertainment Group is bringing five completed Chinese animated titles and one still in development to FilMart this year for international sales. Its slate is one shy of what it was at Berlin, after the backers of adventure film “Loli Pop in Fantasy,” previously represented by the firm, decided to part ways with the distributor.
Founded in 2006, HGC is involved in film investment, distribution, merchandise development and sales. Previously, it focused on the acquisition and distribution of foreign titles, and has in its IP catalog more than 600 foreign films and 300 Chinese novels and comics.
This past year, however, it has shifted greater attention to acting as a sales company for Chinese animated titles, which it believes have the best chance of traveling abroad.
Its slate includes “The Wind Guardians,” which made $17 million at the Chinese box office last summer. Directed by Liu Kuo, it tells the story of a blind boy who must destroy the monster who turned his mother into a demon in exchange for restoring his sight. Other titles are “Yugo & Lala 4,” which took in $15.4 million in theaters last summer and focuses on a village girl and her father who go searching for her mother in a mysterious world. “One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes” made $19.7 million during its summer 2017 theatrical run and tells the tale of an orphan boy who goes looking for a holy staff stolen by an Egyptian god. “Police Car Union,” about an anthropomorphic police car who heads into the city to find his missing father Big Truck, made just $790,000 in theaters at the end of December.
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HGC also has the China rights to Korean title “Underdog,” about stray dogs looking for a place without humans. It will also be shopping “Fortune Cat,” an animated feature about a lucky cat that saves the world, set for release in 2020.
According to its 2018-2020 import goals, HGC seeks each year to bring in 15 foreign blockbuster theatrical titles a year, including five from the U.S.; six theatrical animated titles, primarily from outside the U.S.; and 100-200 non-theatrical titles from online streaming platforms and IPTV OTT.