China’s Growing Movie Industry: Does It Still Need Hollywood?

Published on Sep 25, 2015
The global box office is king, and demand for international movies and television has never been greater. Asia is at the forefront of a new entertainment paradigm, with many of its distributors aggressively exporting films around the world. In fact, China, with the world’s fastest-growing movie industry, is expected to surpass Hollywood in box-office revenue by 2017. The growth of the Asian market has sparked drives to co-produce and co-finance movies with big Hollywood studios. But does China’s industry, rich with skilled filmmakers and solid financial backing, really need Hollywood’s help? What is the key to reaching a growing, and increasingly prosperous, middle class in East Asia? Who holds the advantage, and how do companies determine what the new consumers actually want? Can new streaming services combat piracy and also provide an effective means to deliver content to consumers’ homes?