CHINA BREAKS BOX OFFICE RECORD

For some years, CMG has stated that China would surpass the U.S. as the largest movie box office grosser and inklings of this are now appearing.  This month, China will out-gross the U.S. as movies grossed $554 million last week - setting a new one-week movie admissions record.

'The Mermaid' helped break record

Roughly half of the record total, or $276 million, was grossed by a movie entitled, 'The Mermaid', a film staring Hong Kong comic Stephen Chow that was not released in the U.S.  The U.S. box office is still ahead for the year but it's only a matter of time before the U.S. rule over the cinema box office will come to an end. To give some perspective on how fast the Chinese cinema is growing, last week's admissions of $554 million were bigger than China's total box office for the entire year of 2007!

In second place last week was another Chinese movie, entitled 'The Man From  Macao 3' - it grossed $120 million.  In third was 'The Monkey King' which earned $117 million.  Again neither of these films were released in the U.S.

This is why I say that the scuffle over the diversity  of the Oscars is not relevant as the whole premise of the Oscars will be less and less important as China moves into the number one spot.  The Chinese will have their own Awards shows and the current Western stars of the cinema will loose relevance.

The cinema industry is literally shifting to the East as China's huge populace flocks to the new cinemas being constructed.  The Hollywood glitterati should brace themselves for the tsunami that is going to hit the industry.