movies

On social media videos, audiences throw packs of tissues around the cinema halls. Tearful TikToks from across Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore show friends leaving the cinema weeping. Thailand’s latest hit film, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, has reduced audiences across south-east Asia to tears – and broken box office records.

The film, about a university dropout who offers to care for his terminally ill grandma, hoping to inherit her house, has reportedly earned 334m Thai baht ($9.1m) at the Thai box office and become the most successful Thai film ever in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

It is the latest success story for films made in Thailand and south-east Asia, which, while Hollywood has grappled with strikes and production delays, have captured audiences across the region and boosted the cinema industry.

“Covid, and industry issues that impacted Hollywood product flow, have ushered [in] a period of growth for local and regional films, in some cases with record-breaking results,” said Rance Pow, of Artisan Gateway, a film consultancy.

In Indonesia, the horror film KKN di Desa Penari (KKN in Dancer’s Village) sold more than 10m tickets in 2022, according to local media, becoming the country’s highest-grossing locally made film. The Vietnamese romance Mai, released in February, has become the highest-grossing Vietnam-produced film of all time at home and in North America and Europe, according to Deadline.

While screens are being closed down in the US, Indonesia’s biggest chain, Cinema XXI, listed on the Indonesian stock exchange last year, while in Thailand new cinemas are being opened.