Fans in for treat as producers move to exploit opportunity

Kelvin Hou, founder and chief executive officer of Mtime, speaks about developing movie-related merchandise in China at a Beijing event. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/China Daily]

Expressing optimism about the future of the merchandise sector, Kelvin Hou, founder and chief executive officer of Mtime, China's largest movie merchandise company, says: "China's movie industry is scaling up, which is good for the movie merchandise sector."

Mtime, which is also a popular online platform offering movie information, reviews and tickets, is among the few Chinese firms that can obtain copyright authorizations from Hollywood's "Big Six".

It is also the only agent authorized to sell Warcraft merchandise in the Chinese mainland.

Giving details of how the merchandising business works, Hou says that major Hollywood studios usually start developing movie-related merchandise almost as the script is being written.

In contrast, most Chinese filmmakers take up the production of merchandise as the premiere nears or after the movie has garnered some measure of popularity, which gives them very little time to design and produce high-quality products.

Typically, it takes at least 60 days to come up with a product, which has artistic merit and connects with the film. But Chinese filmmakers, most of whom use the merchandise to promote their films, spend a few weeks or less on developing the products, says Dai Dai, a movie merchandise manager with leading ticketing app Weipiao.

Separately, Chinese movie watchers prefer to buy relatively cheap items.

Also, unlike fans abroad for whom collecting movie-themed merchandise is a serious hobby, few Chinese fans do this, says Dai.

But changes are apparently taking place in China's booming movie market, mainly pushed by the country's growing number of middle-class moviegoers, and their demand for high-quality, official merchandise.