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Thursday, December 04, 2025
How China's Wanda Film Attracts Gen Z With Immersive Experiences
www.hollywoodreporter.com: In an age when audiences are spoiled for choice across countless entertainment platforms, it’s no secret that cinema operators worldwide are feeling the heat.
2 comments:
Sid J
said...
I can totally see how this approach to promoting media has become wildly successful, however I do find it slightly eerie. To me, it seems that this company has figured out how to leverage all angles of consumerist culture to take its movie theaters from being just a movie theater to being what they call “social spaces” that take advantage of fandom culture and social hype to draw people in. This past summer, I was in China and I noticed how everything was centralized around social media, specifically on WeChat. WeChat is what you use to pay for everything, get around the city, order food at restaurants, talk to your friends, and where you go for entertainment. I think this fandom centered approach works especially well in China for this reason. We also know that this contributes to the Chinese government’s ability to heavily surveil its citizens and control the media that is available to them. So, I find it a little creepy.
Evolving with the times is a hard thing for anyone to do, but it seems like this company is making progress towards keeping the new generations involved in entertainment. Everyone always talks about the lack of “third” spaces but I really like this company’s attempt at creating a new one in theaters. Social spaces are so rare these days that creating a new “social hub” is very commendable and a tough thing to do successfully. Younger people are accustomed to having access to everything through their phones, including entertainment, so why bother trying to get them to enjoy/respect in person content? Well, as I said previously, in person “third” spaces are so rare, but they are so helpful to the growth of young people. The younger generation is losing its social skills because of the internet, AI, and social media. Creating new spaces for them to talk to their peers and make connections based on interests is needed and an important thing for companies to attempt.
2 comments:
I can totally see how this approach to promoting media has become wildly successful, however I do find it slightly eerie. To me, it seems that this company has figured out how to leverage all angles of consumerist culture to take its movie theaters from being just a movie theater to being what they call “social spaces” that take advantage of fandom culture and social hype to draw people in. This past summer, I was in China and I noticed how everything was centralized around social media, specifically on WeChat. WeChat is what you use to pay for everything, get around the city, order food at restaurants, talk to your friends, and where you go for entertainment. I think this fandom centered approach works especially well in China for this reason. We also know that this contributes to the Chinese government’s ability to heavily surveil its citizens and control the media that is available to them. So, I find it a little creepy.
Evolving with the times is a hard thing for anyone to do, but it seems like this company is making progress towards keeping the new generations involved in entertainment. Everyone always talks about the lack of “third” spaces but I really like this company’s attempt at creating a new one in theaters. Social spaces are so rare these days that creating a new “social hub” is very commendable and a tough thing to do successfully. Younger people are accustomed to having access to everything through their phones, including entertainment, so why bother trying to get them to enjoy/respect in person content? Well, as I said previously, in person “third” spaces are so rare, but they are so helpful to the growth of young people. The younger generation is losing its social skills because of the internet, AI, and social media. Creating new spaces for them to talk to their peers and make connections based on interests is needed and an important thing for companies to attempt.
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