Fox Filmed Entertainment’s Jim Gianopulos: ‘Theft’ Is the Film Industry’s Biggest Problem1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe biggest issue the global film industry faces, said 20th Century Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman Jim Gianopulos, is in one word, “theft.”
“The fact that people are stealing from us make me angry,” Gianopulos told The Hollywood Reporter at ScreenSingapore, not long before departing to take the same message to the Shanghai International Film Festival.
Gianopulos, the keynote speaker the inaugural edition of ScreenSingapore’s Film Financing Forum, believed the international community should bend together to fight against online piracy.
“As the local markets continue to expand, and new investments come into the entertainment sector, it’s imperative for governments and industry to find ways to protect that content, otherwise it can’t build value and it can’t return on its investments,” said Gianopulos.
“It’s very difficult to have a properly organized market when you’re making things that cost you money and other people are taking it for free. So the starting point has to be a control over people’s ability to steal what you’ve made. The larger the investment, the larger the market and the greater the importance for that protection,” added the man who greenlitAvatar, which reportedly cost nearly $250 million and grossed $2.8 billion worldwide.
