More Thai movies, please, says the guy with all the projectors
Wicha Poolvaraluck, the boss at Major Cineplex, comes across as a major cheerleader for Thai cinema in an interview with Who? magazine. This month's cover boy - listed by Forbes among Thailand's 50 wealthiest people - says he'd love to see Thai films domi
“Hollywood films take the lion’s share – 93 per cent of all the movies screened here – but the situation has been picking up for Thai films, which have increased their market share to 35 per cent.” Give the local industry another three to five years, Wicha reckons, and half the theatres in Thailand will be showing Thai movies. He does his bit by encouraging Thai filmmakers to make more, more, more.
For sure there’ll be a lot more theatres in the near future, Wicha points out. The expansion of Major Cineplex has proved there’s tremendous potential in the provinces, overlooked until now. Demand is particularly keen in Ratchaburi, Phetburi, Nakhon Sawan, Prachin Buri and Nong
Bua Lamphu. “Experience has taught us that some of the smaller provinces are in greater need of movie theatres than the bigger ones!”
Wicha doesn’t blow his cinema chain’s horn in efforts to grow the Thai film industry, but a boom in provincial theatres can’t help but improve the situation. Major has ambitious plans – 100 new theatres a year for the next five years. That’s 500 outlets by 2020. And that’s not all.
Wich says his ultimate goal is getting more Thai movies into the Chinese market. “It’s the world’s second-largest market,” he notes. “‘Transformer’ earned US$310 million in China, whereas the US gross was just $230 million.”
Thailand almost stumbled into China when the Chinese comedy “Lost in Thailand” became a hit there and made everyone want to come and see Thailand for themselves. Now there’s a big push to show more Thai films there, though the market remains rigidly protected.
Wicha shares the outlook of many Thai film producers – that we can get through that protective barrier with cinematic joint ventures in the form of co-productions or cross-productions. “Thai and Chinese stars could appear in the same film and it would have great marketing potential elsewhere in Southeast Asia too,” he says.
Wicha believes Thailand has enough young talent that it can easily bring out big, high-quality titles. “Some studios already think in terms of quality rather than quantity. Let’s do that in a big way.” One crucial step, though, is to make sure the quality of out exports meets the same high standard.
Wicha is so keen about the possibilities that we can’t help thinking he’s itching to get out there and make some movies himself. And that we’d like to see!
