China is today home to around 16,000 cinema screens. 80 percent of them support 3D technology. This comes as the country has become the second-largest film market after Hollywood, and bigger than Bollywood. But as Martina Fuchs finds out, the 3D business still has a lot of scope to play catch-up.
For Chinese movie-goers, 3D and IMAX films have become all the rage.
On a Saturday night, this is a very common scene.
At Beijing-based entertainment consultancy EntGroup, industry experts say the growth of 3D cinema over recent years has been exponential.
"Looking at the box office of 3D movies, including IMAX films and other big screen productions, at the end of September this year, the 3D movie box office has reached more than 7 billion yuan, which is 45 percent of the total. We can conclude that the 3D movie industry is developing at a very fast pace." Said Catherine Liu, analyst of EntGroup.
Media consultancy Screen Digest estimates that in 2012, North America hosted around 15,000 3D screens, followed by the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, the Middle East and Africa , while Latin America lagged far behind with over two thousand.
In Asia, China is home to the highest number of 3D screens with around 9,500 in 2012.
But 3D infrastructure involves significant investments as well as state-of-the art technology. This might hamper future growth.
"Even when looking through these 3D glasses, the future of 3D films doesn’t look very promising in China. For a lot of cinemas, it’s too expensive to invest into big screens, and maintenance costs are simply too high." Said Martina Fuchs.
Germany’s 3D technology company IMCUBE is nevertheless eager to tap the market. It converts films produced in 2D format to 3D using a special conversion technology, and is looking for local clients.
"We spoke to people and our information is that next year there will be 5 or more films with big budgets of over 200 million RMB, which will be in 3D either native filmed or converted. So our aim is to get one or two of these Chinese films for conversion in our quality." Said Wilhelm Mittrich, CEO of Imcube.
China limits the number of foreign films released every year, with the current cap at 34. Among them, 14 are in 3D or IMAX formats. But with the growing consumer demand, this quota might change soon.