a movie to be considered an official Chinese coproduction, one-third of the movie’s cast had to be Chinese or one-third of its running time had to take place in China. Audaciously, the Looper producers applied for that status anyway. The government didn’t grant it, but it did call Looper an “assisted production”—which was almost as good. It meant the movie had no blackout period and the producers were allowed to keep 100 percent of the box-office receipts. Looper was a hit, earning $176.5 million worldwide, albeit not on the scale of The Avengers, which
