Exhibiting films is both simple and utterly opaque. Theaters thrive selling tickets and popcorn, but what makes people want to go to a movie?

Hollywood is so ruthless in rewarding success and punishing failure that even the best directors are only as good as their last film. Today's toast-of-the-town is only a flop away from losing all cachet.

Theater ownership is certainly no guarantee of box office success and quotas are no guarantee of quality. Yet Wang Jianlin is a savvy businessman, so it would be premature to suggest that he has bitten off a bit more than he can chew. Inasmuch as the Wanda empire of screens and its vast studio-project are basically real estate ventures, it still lacks the creative spark that animates all good art.

It is the rare film, such as Star Wars, or Titanic or Avatar that soars in every available market. But it is also worth noting that the above films-the three best selling films of all time-reflect the creative stamp of stubborn, rugged individualists.

Such films are the box-office standards to beat, but hard to emulate. If Wanda can crack the code and produce mass-market films worthy of solitary genius, China would indeed gain prestige and be a force to be reckoned with in global cinema.

The author is a visiting research fellow, Cornell University, New York

Courtesy: chinausfocus.com