Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction

Thursday, April 28th, 2016 6:07PM CDT

Category: Movie News
Posted by: D-Maximal_Primal Views: 30,588

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Thanks to The Hollywood Reporter we now have information regarding a lawsuit against Paramount studios regarding Wulong Karst Tourism, which reportedly paid $750,000 for it's logo to be featured in the film but in the end was not put in. We have quoted the article below for you to read:

Paramount Pictures has been hit with a $27.7 million (180 million yuan) lawsuit in China over a product placement that was allegedly omitted from Transformers: Age of Extinction.

Wulong Karst Tourism, a state-backed travel company, argued Tuesday in local court that Paramount Pictures and China Movie Channel, the Chinese co-producer of Transformers 4, failed to fulfill their obligations as part of a product placement deal signed in 2013, according to Chongqing Morning Post.

The case was accepted by a court in Chongqing city in 2014 and is now finally being heard.

Wulong Karst Tourism runs a resort in China's southern Wulong county, an area famous for its eroded limestone cliffs, a magnificent landscape known as "karst." Portions of Age of Extinction were shot in Wulong Karst National Park, and the tour company says its deal with Paramount was for a logo, featuring the Chinese characters “China Wulong,” to be displayed in the finished film, so Chinese audiences would know where the film was shot. The company says it paid nearly $750,000 (4.8 million yuan) before production began in exchange for the promotion.

According to local press, the defendants — Paramount and China Movie Channel — conceded that the logo didn't make it into the finished film, but said they took pains to make up for it. Michael Bay is said to have shot a short advertisement for the resort, and the Transformers production team left sets and props on the resort property, which Wulong Karst Tourism could leverage as a tourist attraction.

The Chongqing court has yet to deliver a verdict.

The Transformers 4 shoot in greater China was not without other incident. During a day of shooting in Hong Kong in 2013, Bay was attacked by two local thugs who had tried to extort the shoot for "protection money" and been rebuffed. One of the assailants allegedly came after Bay using a piece of an air conditioner as a weapon. The director managed to escape unscathed, and the attackers were subdued by security and arrested.

Transformers 4 was a tremendous hit in China, grossing $320 million.

Credit(s): The Hollywood Reporter

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Re: Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction (1785092)
Posted by Deadput on April 28th, 2016 @ 6:36pm CDT

Wat?

Is this really a thing I mean I understand that they payed for their logo to be in the film but "Lacking Chinese Product Placement" is a kinda misinformative title.

Re: Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction (1785096)
Posted by RevTibe on April 28th, 2016 @ 7:06pm CDT

The defense is pretty weak - a short ad and leaving their junk behind on hotel property isn't nearly equivalent to the exposure gained from onscreen placement in a blockbuster of this scale. Unless the ad was shot with the explicit agreement of being a replacement for the placement, they don't have a leg to stand on, really. 27 mil does seem excessive, though, and my lack of knowledge re: Chinese legal system leaves me unable to comment on the specifics of this.

Re: Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction (1785102)
Posted by Sigma Magnus on April 28th, 2016 @ 7:39pm CDT

Interesting development...wonder where this might go.

Re: Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction (1785168)
Posted by Nemesis Maximo on April 28th, 2016 @ 11:06pm CDT

I know it's different from actual product placement, but I mean come one, the latter 1/3 of the film is basicLly a big commercial for...China. Shouldn't that count for at least a little?

Re: Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction (1785170)
Posted by RevTibe on April 28th, 2016 @ 11:13pm CDT

Nemesis Maximo wrote:I know it's different from actual product placement, but I mean come one, the latter 1/3 of the film is basicLly a big commercial for...China. Shouldn't that count for at least a little?

...why would that count for anything at all? "Well, they completely reneged on our three quarter million dollar deal by not displaying our logo, but at least they set part of the film in our home country!"

Re: Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction (1785176)
Posted by BERSEKAEL on April 29th, 2016 @ 12:12am CDT

they could show the logo in the next movie... some how.

Re: Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction (1785192)
Posted by Megatron Wolf on April 29th, 2016 @ 3:04am CDT

"so we were paid almost a million bucks to place a logo in our movie (thats basically a giant advertisement in its self) but instead of doing that we shot a "commercial" in between takes for free then left our garbage i mean props behind so they could have an "exhibit", id say they got their monies worth". so whos more at fault here bay for not including it or paramount for not making sure he did? Just more proof that excessive product placement is a bad thing

This post brought to you by Weyland-Yutani Corp, "building better worlds"

Re: Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction (1785508)
Posted by Hellscream9999 on April 29th, 2016 @ 10:00pm CDT

Didn't something similar happen almost right after (or maybe during production) where a hotel was suing them or something?

Re: Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction (1837416)
Posted by Va'al on October 28th, 2016 @ 10:43am CDT

Remember that news about legal action being taken against Paramount on behalf of Chinese businesses for stuff that went down during Transformers: Age of Extinction? We have an update, courtesy once again of The Hollywood Reporter: the media company will indeed have to pay a settlement to the Wulong Karst National Park. Read more below!

A Chinese court on Thursday ordered Viacom's Paramount Pictures and a Chinese production partner to pay $295,000, or 2 million yuan, including incurred legal fees, to a tourist resort in a breach of contract dispute over product placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction.

The court in Chongqing found that Paramount and Chinese partner 1905 failed to fulfill their major obligations under the agreement, but later partially made up for it, the South China Morning Post reported, quoting China National Radio.

The management company for the Wulong Karst National Geological Park had brought the lawsuit, saying the two sides had agreed that a logo of the resort would appear in the fourth Transformers film's final edit.

The defendants had admitted that the logo didn't make the film, but they tried to make up for that by allowing director Michael Bay to make an advertising spot for the resort and leaving behind items built for the film as tourist attractions.

The court rejected a counter claim filed by Paramount due to Wulong Karst’s decision to only pay part of the agreed-upon fees once it found out its name and logo did not appear in the film.

Re: Paramount Pictures Sued for Lacking Chinese Product Placement in Transformers: Age of Extinction (1837779)
Posted by YoungPrime on October 30th, 2016 @ 8:30am CDT

Paramount was almost $300M in the red this Summer due to mediocre to flat out crappy films. And now this...

I call it KARMA!

And I'm calling it now! Bayformers 5 is not going to get them out of this slump. Between the US Box office growing hip to Bays crap and staying home now and China taking their silly @sses to court, don't expect the success that MCU gets. For one Marvel Studio's actually gives a crap about the characters. And "Prime meets King Author" or whatever the h3ll isn't fun.