[LINK] "China's Meteoric Box-Office Rise"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Malcolm Smith describes the growing economic--and, perhaps soon, cultural--impact of Chinese audiences on the movies. How long will it be before content starts to shift to accommodate the major market?

`Avengers: Age of Ultron', debuting in China on May 12, is poised to overtake `Furious 7' as the Asian nation's top-grossing movie, based on pre-release bookings. That's no small feat since the latest chapter in the car-themed series was almost 14 percent bigger at the Chinese box office than in the U.S. and Canada, with $385 million so far.

`Avengers' reservations have been double those in the run-up to `Furious 7', according to Shanghai-based ticketing agency Gewara.com. The superhero sequel would be the sixth film to exceed $200 million in China, data compiled by Bloomberg from EntGroup Inc. and Box Office Mojo show.

"American audiences have diversified tastes and a lot more choice,'' said Peng Kan, an analyst in Beijing at Legend Media Co. "But Chinese favor Hollywood films because they deliver more action, surprises and better special effects."

China's potential has surged with a quadrupling of theater screens since 2010, to more than 24,300 at the end of 2014, versus 43,300 screens in the U.S., according to EntGroup and the Motion Picture Association of America's website.

Expansion, growing incomes and urbanization helped boost China's total box office by 34 percent last year to $4.8 billion. The U.S./Canada total fell 5 percent to $10.4 billion, according to MPAA.