Xinhua: Only 10% of Chinese films attract audiences
According to China’s Xinhua news agency, “Only one in ten films made in China last year attracted an audience, indicating major problems in the domestic cinema market.”
Piracy, of both the optical disc and internet varieties, is a major cause of the lack of a solid Chinese film market. In my view, it not only leads to a lack of financial resources that can be reinvested into the Chinese film industry to stoke innovation, but it also causes Chinese filmmakers and studios to be extremely conservative with their creative choices. Thus, most Chinese films are highly formulaic because the margins are so slim that filmmakers are only comfortable going for the broadest possible tried-and-true market. This result is often the reverse of what’s intended–so many Chinese films are so similar that the market is awash with films that from the cover alone look identical. Rather than attracting customers, this causes many films to cancel each other out in the marketplace and leave customers dissatisfied and disinterested in general.
Of course, Hollywood suffers from the same disease to a lesser degree, but piracy in China amplifies the problem there significantly.