The Chinese film The Founding of a Republic, a propaganda epic about the creation of communist China, took in over $60m at the box office in 2009. All the big names in the Chinese entertainment industry made the credits. Every government employee was given a ticket to watch it. But it was out of touch with the nation’s young urban materialists, many of whom thought it a bore. Bureaucracy and draconian censorship regulations mean China’s film industry has not changed much since then. But the sheer size of the market is tempting investment.

This week, Wang Jianlin, one of China’s richest men, said he would invest up to $8bn in a film park the size of 700 football pitches in the east coast city of Qingdao. It would be a cross between Disneyland and a Hollywood studio. This vanity project is not as bizarre as it sounds.Mr Wang is the founder of Dalian Wanda Group, a property developer that is the largest owner of cinemas in China. He bought the US cinema chain AMC Entertainment for $2.6bn last year. Now he is keen to develop AMC’s knowhow to profit from the potential in China. The country is the second-biggest film market in the world after the US. Its box office revenues jumped 36 per cent in the first half of 2013, to $1.8bn. The number of cinemas could reach almost 5,000 by the end of the year.

It is tough for private investors to make money in the industry. Hong Kong-listed Orange Sky has been expanding its cinema network in China and neighbouring regions, and is making a decent profit. But listed film developers are finding it hard to compete with dominant state-owned producers such as China Film Group. Only these latter groups have the rights to distribute foreign films, for example. That leaves private producers scrambling for co-production opportunities abroad in order to circumnavigate restrictions at home.