1c846f1ef9fe86ca5491aca9b3664f43.jpg (Photo : www.9tour.cn)
China is predicted to overtake the United States as the world's largest film market by 2018, said a top Chinese film distributor during a forum in Singapore.
Bona Film Group CEO and founder Yu Dong said the country's US$3.3 billion box office sales this year is expected to keep rising annually to hit US$9.9 billion in 2018.
China is this year's second largest film market in the world but it will only take five years for the country to replace the United States.
Yu, who delivered a keynote speech at the 14th Asia TV Forum in Singapore, said China's lead will be due to the country's film market boom as attendances in small Chinese cities keep rising.
The rise of new breeds of world-class Chinese directors will also contribute to the tremendous growth of the country's film market, Yu said.
China currently has almost 20,000 screens. The number is growing at a rate of almost 5,000 new screens annually. With the easy access to cinemas, including in small cities, Chinese families now consider watching movies as a standard leisure pursuit.
However, Yu warned that for the Chinese film industry to keep its growth rate, industry players should work hard to improve Chinese production quality. He added that Chinese moviegoers can detect poor quality effects in Chinese movies and could instead choose to watch Hollywood films should they continue to get disappointed with local films.
Official figures released by Chinese authorities said the box office sales in the country as of November 25, 2013 reached US$3.17 billion.
