Actor John Travolta of the U.S. gestures to fans as he arrives for the launch ceremony of the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis on the outskirts of Qingdao, Shandong province September 22, 2013. (Jason Lee/Reuters)
Consider this: Hollywood studios now make more money selling movie tickets in China than in any other market outside North America. Wanda, China’s largest real estate developer, bought AMC, the second-largest movie theater chain in the United States, and is also investing in making movies of its own. China is building theaters and adding movie screens at a rate not seen in the U.S. in decades, and Chinese audiences are ballooning.
DreamWorks Animation, which made the global blockbuster Kungfu Panda, is now making parts of the third of six planned installments, as well as other films, at its new joint-venture studio in Shanghai.
What does all this mean for Hollywood? A lot. Viewed through one lens, China is Hollywood’s savior: a new frontier, a place to mint fans and money. Viewed through another, it’s Hollywood’s nightmare: a country hostile to free expression where the state tries hard to maintain control of culture and wants to reap its own profits from its legions of filmgoers by keeping Hollywood on the outside looking in.
China, meanwhile, envies Hollywood as much for its cultural empire as for its financial clout.
The two sides need each other, want each other, and yet—despite last year’s landmarkfilm deal a decade in the making—neither side is ready to completely embrace the other. Will the story end with carnage or with the two sides riding off into the sunset together? Too soon to say. In the meantime, here are some numbers to give you a sense of what’s at stake.
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U.S. $2.8 billion
Gross in movie tickets sold in China in 2012
$10.8 billion
Gross in movie tickets sold in the U.S. in 2012
$2.7 billion
Gross in movie tickets sold at China’s box office in first nine months of 2013
35%
Rise in gross value of movie tickets sold in China in the first nine months of 2013, up from the same period in 2012
$1.6 billion
Gross of Chinese-language films at China’s box office from January 1 to September 30, 2013
58.2%
Market share of Chinese-language films at the box office from January through September 2013
93.8%
Rise in box office sales grossed by Chinese-language films over the first nine months of 2012
$1.1 billion
Gross of films imported into China from January 1 to September 30, 2013
41.9%
Market share of imported films in the first nine months of 2013
5.2%
Decline in box office gross sales of tickets to imported movies in the first nine months of 2013
$182 million
Gross of Avatar in China in 2009, making director James Cameron’s sci-fi film the all-time No. 1 movie in China
$197 million
Grossed of Lost in Thailand in China in late 2012 and early 2013, making director Xu Zheng’s comedy the biggest Chinese-language hit of all time
Number of Americans per movie screen in the United States
13,118
Number of movie screens in China
103,923
Number of Chinese per movie screen in China
$5 billion
Estimated “value potential” (estimated box office gross plus possible ancillary revenue) in China by 2017
34
Number of imported films China permits its theaters to screen each year, for which gross ticket sales are divided between the foreign copyright holder and the Chinese distributors
20
Number of imported revenue-sharing films allowed on China's silver screens before the U.S.-China Film Deal signed February 2012
25%
Box office take grossed by an imported film shown in China that can flow back to its copyright holder abroad
13%
Rough percentage studios outside China got from their theatrical releases inside China before Spring 2012
10
Years it took for U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators to reach an agreement over terms of U.S.-China film deal in 2012
$2.6 billion
Amount spent by real estate giant Dalian Wanda to acquire AMC Entertainment Holdings, the No. 2 U.S. cinema chain
1
Rank of Wanda among world’s largest cinema chains
4
Number of partners in Oriental DreamWorks: one American (DreamWorks Animation) and three Chinese (China Media Capital, Shanghai Media Group, and Shanghai Alliance Investment)
