The notable exception was Asia and in particular China, in which growth in the number of theaters continued to be robust. Box office reached 29.6 billion yuan (around $4.8 billion US) in 2014, more than 30 times that of 2002.

"Furious 7" reaped more than 2 billion yuan in April in China and became the country's most successful movie ever, overshadowing the US market.

China's box office so far this year has surpassed 17.5 billion yuan, up 55 percent year on year.

"Several years ago, we were proud of a theater chain taking a billion yuan in a year. Now, one billion is just the box office of a single film," said Lu Yang, a manager with Wanda Cinemas, the film arm of the Wanda Group conglomerate.

Wanda Cinemas has more than 1,300 screens across China and accounted for 14.5 percent of the country's box office in 2014.

Seeing the bright prospects, big names like e-commerce giant Alibaba have been investing heavily in the film industry.

Alibaba paid 6.24 billion HK dollars last year for 59.32 percent of Hong Kong-listed China Vision Media Group Ltd and renamed it "Ali Pictures". In March, Alibaba acquired an 8.8-percent stake in Enlight, one of China's leading film and TV production companies. It announced at the film festival that a Netflix-style video streaming service will be launched within two months.

The lucrative market has also attracted global movie mainstays like DreamWorks to open studios in Shanghai. Major movie academies, including the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and Vancouver Film School, have established branch schools in China.