Why Asia may be the next media and entertainment epicenter

When Dynamite debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 2020, BTS became the first all-South Korean act to top the chart. Western desks had to stop treating Asia as a side market.

Stadiums, a UN address, and ARMY’s release logistics followed. Soft power from the region was already there. BTS made the export era impossible to miss.

The spark mattered because it trained executives to see Asia as an export engine, a place that mints hits for the rest of the world.

Six years later the receipts are louder than the origin story. Asia-Pacific already takes the largest regional slice of global theatrical money. Recorded music there grew double digits in 2025.

Netflix’s most-watched film ever is a K-pop animated feature. The United States is still the richest single music market. Hollywood still mints event movies.

It is also thinner and merger-stuck. Dollar grosses now lean on expensive tickets while fewer people walk into the room.

Our read: the useful question is whether the industry keeps treating Los Angeles as the default center when the growth is already happening elsewhere.

The rooms filled in Asia first

France’s National Center of Cinema, working with research firm Omdia, put Asia-Pacific at about 42 percent of global box office revenue in 2025. China alone was around 22 percent.

Worldwide theatrical sat near $33.6 billion, still about 19 percent below the 2017–2019 average. The same study said a market’s vitality now depends on local films.

China’s Ne Zha 2, Jiaozi’s animated myth sequel, finished 2025 as the worldwide box office No. 1 at roughly $2.27 billion. More than 95 percent of that money stayed inside China.

Almost none of that money needed a Hollywood-style global rollout. An Asian market minted a billion-dollar film without waiting for English-language permission.

Japan’s Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, the 2025 anime feature, cleared about $794 million worldwide, with a real overseas split. Anime and Chinese animation now sit on the global calendar as lead titles.

U.S. admissions tell the other story. Industry tallies put 2025 ticket sales near 764 million, down almost 40 percent from 1.23 billion in 2019.

Dollar grosses look healthier because tickets cost more.

Wide-release volume is also down versus pre-pandemic averages. Mid-budget dramas and comedies keep migrating to streaming. Theatrical becomes a handful of event bets.

When CNC writes that monoculture is dead, it is describing that split. Asia filled rooms with local hits. Hollywood sold fewer, bigger, more expensive nights out.

The music trade already priced the shift

IFPI, the global recorded-music trade body, said Asia’s revenues grew 10.9 percent in 2025. Japan, still the world’s No. 2 market, returned to growth at 8.9 percent.

China jumped 20.1 percent and overtook Germany to become the world’s fourth-largest recorded music market. South Korea sits seventh. Asia also held about 45 percent of global physical music revenue.

The United States remains No. 1. The growth rate is the other number.

The next dollars and the next physical spikes are concentrating where K-pop albums, Chinese streaming, and Japanese retail still move like everyday culture.

BTS made that pipeline visible to New York and London. Later K-pop exports kept it running through military-service cycles and solo eras. Asia builds acts that travel with fandom logistics attached.

Streaming made the argument bilingual

KPop Demon Hunters became Netflix’s most-watched film, passing Red Notice and later climbing past 600 million views. The Sony Animation feature, from Korean Canadian director Maggie Kang, sold a K-pop sound to people who had never bought a physical album in Seoul.

Its soundtrack put four songs in the Hot 100 top 10 at once and sent Golden to No. 1. The movie did the music industry’s old job, then kept compounding on the streamer a year later.

Squid Game had already proved Korean TV could own the global non-English chart. ContentAsia, the trade desk that tracks those weekly lists, put Asian series at roughly 60 percent of non-English top-10 viewing hours across much of 2025.

Korea led. Japan’s anime lane followed. India and Thailand popped in.

Hollywood’s hiring math moved the other way. UCLA’s 2026 diversity report found BIPOC leads in major streaming films fell from 51 percent to 36 percent.

Viewers still showed up for Asian-led work. The yeses moved to titles greenlit elsewhere or bought for global shelves.

Hollywood’s problem is the slate

A weak summer would be easier to dismiss. Cowen analyst Doug Creutz has warned of a negative feedback loop: fewer wide releases, fewer screens, more films skipping theaters.

2026 box office can look “best since the pandemic” in dollars while fewer people actually go. Price and premium formats are doing work that attendance used to do.

Studio balance sheets stay messy. Warner Bros. Discovery’s theatrical and linear TV pressure sat beside a Paramount Skydance merger stuck in antitrust limbo through 2026, with daily ticking fees and delayed integration.

Layoffs and slate cuts sat under every franchise announcement.

Hollywood still owns distribution muscle, awards machinery, and English-language marketing. What it is losing is the assumption that the world’s default hit starts on a Culver City lot.

What the word is worth

Parasite already proved an Asian film can travel everywhere. Ne Zha 2 proves a home market can outrun export. Seoul and Los Angeles can both stay deal towns.

The densest growth, the loudest non-English streaming weeks, and a rising share of theatrical money already live in Asia.

BTS was the spark that made that visible to Western pop desks. The 2025–2026 ledger is the case: Asia-Pacific near two-fifths of world box office, China’s new No. 4 music rank, Netflix’s all-time film crown on a K-pop feature.

Hollywood is selling fewer seats at higher prices while it waits on a merger.

Our take: the headline is catching up. Measure growth and the center already moved, even if a Saturday in Los Angeles can still be huge.