I know I promised to cover Red Sea Fund in more depth in this edition, but we’ve been overtaken by events in the world of funds, at least in Taiwan, so I’m waiting for a few things to shake out before returning to that subject later this week. In the meantime, I’m doing a quick summary of the 2023 year-end box office stories coming out of Asia, which revealed some interesting nuggets about the current state of the theatrical industry in this part of the world.
To start with, I just want to share a short conversation I had with a young restaurant owner in Hanoi, just before Christmas, who unwittingly summarised a lot about the modern-day theatrical experience in developing markets (in fact in lots of markets). I’m guessing he was born mid to late ‘90s. He said that when he was a kid, he used to go to the state-owned Fafilm and Ngoc Khanh cinemas in Hanoi (now defunct since the Korean majors moved in and built shiny new multiplexes) where he most enjoyed watching the Harry Potter films – an experience he remembers as being “completely magical”.
But these days he doesn’t go to the cinema much because nothing looks that appealing and he doesn’t want to spend hours watching a movie, he’s running a restaurant for one thing, although he also confessed to spending far too much time on TikTok. I asked him what was the last film he went to see in a cinema – and he said Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, which he went to see about six times (!) because he figured buying multiple cinema tickets was cheaper and easier than flying to Singapore to see her in concert.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is pretty much all you need to know about the contemporary cinema market. At least it explains why the audience in developing markets is super young, what kind of competition films are up against, and how the magic these days is being supplied by a pop star, not a movie star or even a wizard. I went to see Wonka at a multiplex in HCM City last night – and while it’s a delightful movie, it’s no Harry Potter.
But seriously, Vietnam is one of the few markets where cinema admissions are still increasing, or at least were growing 10-15% annually before the pandemic, because even though the audience is young and glued to their phones, cinemas are still a novelty in lots of towns and cities and a relatively cheap, fun thing to do. Hollywood films, however, are not doing so great in this market – out of the top ten films last year, only two were US studio movies (Fast X and Elemental).
The biggest film in Vietnam last year was a local production, Tran Thanh’s The House Of No Man, and we can see a similar situation in many Asian markets last year – in China all of the films in the top ten were local productions (see links round-up below).
Although Japan has not yet issued year-end figures, local animation The First Slam Dunk would be the highest grossing movie of 2023 if its box office haul from 2022 was included. Abiding by a strict Jan 1-Dec 31, 2023 box office period makes a US studio movie, Universal’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the highest-grossing film of the year, but noticeably one based on a Japanese IP. In other markets in the region, Japanese anime, in particular The First Slam Dunk, features prominently in year-end charts.
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