The news that the new James Bond film has been postponed once again highlighted the current precarious nature of the cinema business. Many cinemas have found themselves facing very difficult times because of pandemic closures around the world, and even when they have been able to open, many major Hollywood releases have been pushed back or launched on streaming services. The sector as a whole is long overdue some good news - could that come from China?
China's cinema business has been on a growth surge for a decade. Before last year's cinema shutdowns, box office in China rose by a massive 348% across the last decade, and the number of cinema locations in the country grew by 419% to over 10,000 locations boasting over 75,000 screens. Just recently, box office in China posted record returns for the New Year weekend, and a total Box Office in February of CNY 12.2 billion (USD $1.88 billion). China's impact has also been felt again on the global cinema stage with the re-release of Avatar in the country this weekend, meaning the film has retaken the top spot as the highest grossing movie to date.
Before the global lockdowns, it was looking like the 2020s would continue to see China as a major growth market for cinema. Of course, coronavirus has pressed pause on cinema success stories almost everywhere - but when the world manages to get ahead of the pandemic, the attractiveness of China as a major box office consideration as well as its audience size, and headroom to grow further as an international cinema market will remain. As many eyes in the business once again turn to Asia to ramp up their business trajectories, how can China continue forge ahead?
The good news is that the foundations are already in place. Not only is access to good cinema locations spreading and reaching tier 4 and 5 cities around the country, but the expansion of screen volumes around the country also means that it is more able to make film releases accessible to audiences in all corners of the Republic. However, this growth does mean that it shouldn't just be looking to match the development of more mature cinema markets around the world. It will be looking to exceed them and avoid some of the hurdles which have caused the cinema industry in other regions to stagnate or contract, including attracting younger audiences to the cinema, and preparing for the impact of home screening services. The issues around home streaming and its relationship to cinema viewing, the long-term decline of multiplexes as efficient ways to screen a variety of presentations simultaneously, growth of experience-led approaches with access to food and drink and a more individual feel are all equally applicable to China as a market, just as they are to the USA, Europe and other regions and key factors to consider in cinema's continued success.
China, however, is lucky that it can avoid the issues faced by other regions as it grows. One major factor that the domestic Chinese market may want to look at differently is the physical environment of the cinema. One reason why the pandemic has impacted cinema businesses so severely is due to how the audiences are laid out. In fact, when it comes to physical design of cinema screen layout have been broadly similar for some time. The audience tends to sit in long rows of stadium-like seats Under pandemic conditions this meant that social distancing was near impossible - ticket holders had to pass others to reach their seats, and the inefficient design also meant that when operators could open, screens were only allowed to operate at greatly reduced capacity due to distancing measures. When cinemas could make money, occupancy levels were so carefully capped that these screens often struggled to break even.
China has the opportunity to avoid all this while supporting the growth of the sector - and its reputation for rapid change and innovation means it could be in a position to lead the global cinema industry out of pandemic woes by adopting alternative designs to the space. For example, we developed an entirely new approach to cinema design, pre-pandemic, which also provides the 'wow factor' so common to modern Chinese thinking. Instead of seating audiences in tiered rows, the Ōma Cinema design locates ticketholders on their own bespoke floating pods, using the full space at the rear of the auditorium wall. Not only does this design, which has achieved a patent in China recently, mean that each person has an uninterrupted view of the screen for a truly immersive experience, it also means that each pod can have a different seating layout making a single screen just as suitable for individual family groups as bespoke two-seat VIP pods. It is also inherently socially distanced to ease any concerns of audiences seeking to see their chosen film with others, but who may have lingering concerns about post-pandemic proximity to strangers.
The flexibility of this design has a lot to offer, especially to a country experiencing a cultural and cinematic boom like China. It is suitable for cinema redevelopments on existing sites as well as new builds, and even opens up the potential of placing cinema complexes on sites which previously wouldn't have been able to host them - as the audience is placed vertically, it doesn't require the floorspace a typical screen would have needed. But the main opportunity for cinemas in the region of rethinking the space in the manner is the audience experience. The architecture itself becomes a reason to come and view a movie in a truly unique manner, and offering exceptional unbroken views for an audience which can be physically much closer to the screen than in 'typical' cinema designs. Just by rethinking the space, the cinema concept becomes new again - exclusive and communal at the same time, and offering an immersion into the content in a way that home streaming cannot hope to match.
China's cinema industry has demonstrated to the world time and again its ability to innovate and its swift pace of change. The fact that it is enjoying such continuous growth makes it the perfect location to set the standard once again for the rest of the world and rethink the physical cinema space itself. By applying this same innovation to the cinema business model and also give its own domestic content a unique global showcase, it could place itself at the front of the red carpet and the very forefront of the future of cinema business and exhibition.
