Imax to Extend into China?

Imax already has a small number of movie theaters in China, but are looking to expand their market by 75 theaters. Until now, the company primarilly was linked with China's largest movie theater company, Wanda China, and only did business in licensings and royalties.

"The deal offers a window into China's evolving attitude toward the film business, which government leaders have identified in recent years as a growth priority. China is racing to build more modern theaters to entertain an expanding, cinema-loving middle class." There are currently 6,000 movie theaters and the government wants to expand to the number of American movie theaters by 2040.

While reading this, I was curious about how well this would work out. China only allows so many foreign movies into China each year (20), and I would imagine that most Imax movies are predominately American. With this strict regulation, it's hard to think that there is really a large enough chance for profit, but then again I guess showing the same movies many many times due to the large population could cause profit. The article supports this idea saying that people waited for 6 hours for tickets to Avatar, and that China tends to approve the movies that Imax wants to show in their theaters.

China obviously wants to maintain their culture, and their nationalistic model of development has tried to protect this. As American and other foreign business wants to expand into China, they will experience this and will be limited in their expansion. In the general business sector they are not as limited as with cultural exports such as film, broadcasting etc. In order for these foreign cultural products to be successful it is probably necessary for China to reduce their restrictions on cultural imports.

Original Article