Theater screens filmed over with 3-D

Provided to China Daily

Foreign slowdown

In December, the government raised the subsidy, granting additional financial support to movie copyright owners if their enhanced-format movies in all the three box office categories made an extra 25 million yuan in ticket sales. But for films earning more than 500 million yuan at the box office, the subsidy remains at a standard 10 million yuan, regardless of further increases in their ticket sales.

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Unlike the burgeoning market of 3-D movies in China, other movie markets in the world have witnessed a slowdown in the growth of 3-D screens. Despite the continued increase in the number of 3-D screens around the world, the growth rate of global 3-D screens plunged from 27 percent in 2012 to 17 percent in 2013, failing to catch up with the overall growth rate of digital screens, according to statistics from the Motion Picture Association of America.

In addition, the share of 3-D screens among digital screens fell from 51 percent in 2012 to 47 percent in 2013 globally, according to the MPAA statistics. Globally, 3-D movies generated $7.4 billion in box office returns in 2013, up 2 percent year-on-year, but their proportion in the total ticket sales dropped from 21 percent in 2012 to 20.6 percent, to Peng says.

This shows that "Chinese viewers are more accepting of movies that offer them a spectacular viewing experience, like 3-D or Imax, compared with their overseas counterparts", says Peng.