Minting gold from silver screen

Likely box-office records around Spring Festival herald dawn of a new era in China's film industry

Spring Festival is nigh, and China's film industry people have a spring in their step. Hopes are high that the festival period could be better than last year's, which saw a dozen of Chinese films grossing 3.38 billion yuan ($537 million).

Typically, the Spring Festival month, which is usually January or February, produces the year's peak performance for the Chinese box office, the world's largest with 50,766 cinema screens countrywide by the end of last year.