'Transformers' producers lose China legal battle

The Hollywood studio that made the latest "Transformers" blockbuster must pay a Chinese scenic area more than two million yuan ($300,000) because it failed to include the park's logo, state media reported.

A court in Chongqing ordered Paramount Pictures and its Beijing partner to pay the  money to a park in the southwestern municipality, the official Xinhua news agency said late Thursday. 

The films are wildly popular in China, with Chinese companies from milk producers to banks flocking to link their products to them, and when "Transformers: Age of Extinction" came out it became the country's highest ever grossing movie.

Some of its scenes were filmed in the gorges and caves of the Wulong Scenic Area, and the tourism group managing the park claimed that it had a product placement agreement for the logo to be shown in the footage. 

It filed suit in 2014, saying that its contract had been violated and demanding 20 million yuan in compensation, reports at the time said. 

Neither Paramount Pictures nor its Chinese partner 1905 Internet Technology could be reached for comment by AFP on Friday.

"Age of Extinction" was the fourth film in director Michael Bay's robot action franchise, with a fifth instalment due next year.