CHINA’S major film studios are changing how they measure the value of a movie — moving away from a near-total dependence on theatrical ticket sales towards a broader model built on intellectual property (IP) development, licensing, and consumer experiences.
This shift was discussed at the industry forum of the 16th Beijing International Film Festival, where executives from Enlight Media, China Film Group and Shanghai Film Group highlighted strategies for building IP franchises that generate returns well beyond the multiplex. Their discussions reflected a growing concern among China’s leading studios that the old model — built almost entirely on box office revenue that has weakened from its 2019 peak — may no longer be sufficient to sustain the sector on its own.
Wang Changtian, chairman of Enlight Media, pointed out a structural imbalance that the industry faces. He said that studios are increasingly factoring non-theatrical value into their project decisions because box office revenue alone can no longer cover the investment in most films. By contrast, many leading Western studios have long derived the majority of their income from copyright licensing, merchandise and ancillary sources, with theatrical ticket sales representing a smaller share, he added.
In China, film copyright sales generate little income for rights holders — licensing conditions are onerous and prices are low — while merchandise revenue has yet to reach meaningful scale, Wang said. With both streams effectively absent, Chinese studios are left dependent on box office for more than 90 per cent of their revenue — the very source that is now shrinking. He predicted that the industry’s film output would fall, with box office revenue becoming even more concentrated in blockbuster titles.
However, some smaller, lower-cost films with genuinely original ideas may still find room to succeed, he added. For China’s established film studios, the response to such pressure is increasingly pointing towards building and managing IP across multiple revenue channels — with the film itself potentially recast as a starting point rather than an end product.
Xinhua
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