While cinema chains in many key markets including the U.S. — already pressured by the rise of streaming services — have struggled to attract patrons back to their padded seats following the lifting of COVID-19 curbs, in Southeast Asia it’s a far more promising picture: Local box office records are being set, filmmaking grants are being unveiled and large cinema chains are shifting into expansion mode.
Indonesia’s biggest cinema chain, Cinema XXI, went public in August, turning the company’s co-founder Benny Suherman into a billionaire, while Thai movie theater operators Major Cineplex Group and SF Corporation are plotting expansion, with the former targeting 10 new branches and up to 50 screens.
Southeast Asia’s cinema chains faced challenges of their own during the pandemic, but the current situation is in marked contrast to other Asian markets.
CJ CGV, South Korea’s biggest multiplex movie chain operator, has demolished some of its movie screens to make way for bouldering walls, while the country is currently being rocked by allegations of cinema theater admission forgeries in order to boost box office rankings.
Japan’s box office has maintained its position as the third largest globally, but the number of cinema screens still shrunk last year.
In part, driving the growth in Southeast Asia is the popularity of domestically produced films, which are breaking box office records.
The growth of Indonesia’s chains followed liberalization of the cinema sector in 2016 to accommodate foreign investors and combat sluggish international distribution, but recently it is its local films that are making waves. While Hollywood blockbusters continue to perform strongly, domestic titles are increasingly drawing crowds to the cinema — with the locally produced horror “KKN di Desa Penari,” which draws on folklore themes, proving a major winner.
Last year, Indonesian films broke pre-pandemic records, according to Bicara Box Office, a local market analyst, with “KKN di Desa Penari” ranking as the biggest local film of all time — and the second biggest in Indonesian box office history, behind Disney’s “Avengers: Endgame.”
In Thailand, it's a similar scene as a rising crop of domestic offerings makes waves at the local box office. Sophon Sakdaphisit's recent horror thriller “Home for Rent” had a weekslong stint at the top of the box office earlier this year, while political thriller and Cannes Film Festival entrant “Man Suang” reportedly broke ticket pre-sales records.
Prachaya Suwapreechapass, a client service manager for Thailand's Major Cineplex, the country’s biggest cinema chain, said that the films drawing people were a 50-50 split between foreign and domestic movies.
The chain is shaking up its offerings. In 2022, it purchased hologram technology, and more recently it has introduced pet-friendly cinema showings, which Suwapreechapass said had garnered “very good” feedback so far, without elaborating on whether these would be expanded.
Rance Pow, president of Asia-focused movie industry consultancy Artisan Gateway, noted that Indonesia and Vietnam are markets with established Hollywood interest, while the industry is paying greater attention to Thailand’s potential.
There are “common themes we see in the fastest-growing markets in the post-pandemic period,” Pow said, noting the rise of local and regional films and premium cinema experiences as examples.
Developing such experiences is also an important way of combating competition from streaming — which, due to lax enforcement of intellectual property protections, has typically involved movie piracy in many Southeast Asian countries — with a trip to the cinema setting itself apart as a social activity.
Foreign investors are also growing their presence in the market. In April, Imax expanded its Southeast Asia footprint with a series of tie-ups with cinemas in Thailand and Vietnam.
"Southeast Asia remains a strong region with solid growth potential for IMAX, and we're excited to continue our expansion in emerging markets like Vietnam, Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economy for two years in a row," Rich Gelfond, the company’s CEO, said in a statement.
Simultaneously, governments and businesses are interested in bolstering domestic film production — likely in a bid to emulate the success of South Korea’s filmmaking boom, which has attracted global audiences and overseas investment.
For example, Indonesian culture minister Nadiem Makarim in May announced the launch of a multimillion dollar annual film grant, telling Variety, “We want to be, we should theoretically be the destination in Southeast Asia for film productions.”
Movie culture runs deep in many of the markets with strong box offices. In Indonesia, the cinema is also an important barometer of local values and changing culture, said Umi Lestari, a film critic and lecturer in the Universitas Multimedia Nusantara’s film department.
More recently that has manifested itself in a focus on “the development of preservation, digitization and exhibition of Indonesian classic films initiated by the state as well as the film community and Indonesian film archivists,” Lestari said.
“Enthusiasm from audiences to know their own classics has grown. There are many classical Indonesian film screenings initiated by local communities nowadays. I think it is a good signal,” she said. “If you go to Indonesia right now, preservation of culture is becoming a hot topic.”
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