Hollywood's Grip On China's Movie Audience Is Fading Fast. Chinese moviegoers are going mad for Chinese movies. And that’s a very bad thing for America’s movie studios.
Hollywood’s sway over the Middle Kingdom’s multiplexes is in precipitous decline. This year imports from America will tally their lowest market share ever in China’s modern cinema history, most likely less than 35%. That’s a far cry from the 63% share they held as recently as the first half of 2012.
Critics like to point out that China’s movie market is manipulated by government authorities bent on promoting local films at the expense of imports . Most Hollywood movies are given second-rate release slots, shorter runs, and less opportunity to market and advertise relative to domestic Chinese movies. And under-reporting of revenue by China’s cinemas and the state-owned distributor China Film Group has been an ongoing problem according to studio representatives. These factors clearly have had an important impact. But none of this matters much if China’s tastes are shifting to locally made films, and that is indeed happening at a faster rate than most in Hollywood expected.
China’s locally made movies are steadily getting better, and they’re drawing bigger box office numbers. In 2015 at least 7 Chinese movies will gross $150 million or more in mainland multiplexes. Only 3 or 4 Hollywood imports will reach that threshold.
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