For over a century, Hollywood controlled the largest unified film market in the developed world, making it the global leader in film production and distribution. Since 2017, however, China has surpassed the North American market in the number of screens and cutting-edge technology. At the Chinese Multiplex asserts that this change was not the result of market forces, but rather of government policies that helped engineer what is arguably the greatest cultural infrastructure project in history. In China, the state plays a central role in the development of the film exhibition market that follows the same patterns as other infrastructure projects initiated by the Chinese Communist Party. While state-directed, the growth of the Chinese film exhibition market—centered on new multiplexes housed in China’s growing number of urban shopping malls—is part of a larger project to engineer a consumer economy in China. China’s simultaneous embrace of the digital economy, particularly the QR code, has also played a crucial role in the shifting landscape of China’s media industry. 

Focusing on the movie theatre as a contested site, author James Udden offers a timely study of China’s domestic film market. The picture that emerges is one complicated by conflicts between government regulation and private investment, by concerns about digitally managed pricing variables, and by questions about the future viability of a film market focused on regime-friendly blockbusters.

James Udden is Professor of Cinema & Media Studies at Gettysburg College. He has published extensively on Asian cinema and is the author of No Man on Island: The Cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Second Edition, and co-editor of The Poetics of Chinese.