At first glance, 2012 was not a bad year for the US film industry. Global box office figures continued to rise and the largest market, the US, grew for the first time in four years.
The Motion Picture Association of America's figures show the US box office take increasing from $10.2bn to $10.8bn, a rise of 6%.
Meanwhile in the Asia-Pacific region, takings rose by 15%, with China's alone rising a massive 36% to $2.7bn last year.
China has now overtaken Japan as the second largest market outside the US. Some predict that the Chinese market will be bigger than the US by 2020.
However, if you dig a little deeper, perhaps the future is not so rosy for the US movie industry. While it still dominates the global market, a quick calculation indicates that Hollywood's star is dimming: its share of the global market is down 4.2% to 62.7%.
As audiences in emerging markets grow and demand movies that reflect their own cultural experiences, serving up more of the same may not be enough.
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