Chinese superstar Jackie Chan has lauded the growing market prowess of the Chinese film industry at the Shanghai International Film Festival.
His statement comes on the heels of the phenomenal success of Warcraft, a film produced by Legendary Entertainment. The film made $144.7 million in China in over four days. Meanwhile, it had a decent $10.7 million opening in North America despite mixed reviews.
Explaining that the often overlooked Chinese film industry is growing bigger, Chan said that people from all over the world will learn Chinese instead of learning English if the Chinese film industry can make a film that earns $1.5 billion.
Chan also took the opportunity to thank Chinese movie fans, stating that they are the ones who make the Chinese film industry powerful and not the stars.
China's box office total hit $6.78 billion compared to America's $11 billion total in 2015. It has been projected that by 2017, China will be the world's largest theatrical market worldwide.
Stephen Chow's fantasy film The Mermaid is currently the biggest Chinese film in terms of earnings, grossing $528.6 million earlier this year. The highest-grossing movie ever worldwide is Avatar, which raked in $2.7 billion in earnings.
Legendary Films was purchased by Dalian Wanda Group earlier this year, signaling China's intent to continue promoting its film industry.
Warcraft is a film based on the PC game, which is all about the struggles between the orcs, humans and elves. The game is hugely popular and has developed a cult following worldwide.
