Although similar worries as those in the U.S. about the future of the industry amid COVID-19 had plagued Asia’s movie business at the start of the pandemic, audiences are now piling back into theaters and spurring record box-office hauls. Has the pandemic dimmed the houselights for good at American movie theaters? Stay-at-home orders, capacity limits and simple fear of the virus have kept cinema crowds away for nearly a year. So, too, have studio decisions to delay the release of anticipated blockbusters.

While the U.S. box office continues to suffer under the heel of the pandemic, theaters on the other side of the Pacific are attracting customers in droves. In Japan, a record number of people saw movies in Imax Corp. theaters over the weekend, according to Chief Executive Officer Rich Gelfond. In China, December ticket sales at the company’s big-screen theaters jumped 28% from a year earlier, when few people had heard of the novel coronavirus.

At the end of last year, the COVID-19 outbreak hadn’t yet become a pandemic—and, as far as we knew, the virus was contained to the continent of Asia. A lot has changed. Nearly every country in the world has been touched by the virus, there are travel restrictions at most borders and, for the imminent future, we’re all staying pretty close to home.

Even as physical borders face travel restrictions, Asian film professionals are confident that co-productions can flourish in the region.

Liza Diño-Seguerra, chairman and chief executive officer of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), said, “Something I see now is the regional cooperation happening among Southeast Asian countries and among Asian countries and I hope that this continues.”

Thailand has become the latest country to unveil protocols for film and TV production following the coronavirus outbreak. Developed by the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Public Health and the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration, the rules are intended to apply to inbound international productions, the local crews they work with, and to local productions.

NEW YORK/SHANGHAI -- China is cautiously reopening movie theaters after months of lockdowns aimed at combating the coronavirus outbreak, but a full recovery from the pandemic is likely months away and the long-term damage to the film industry -- both financial and creative -- could last far longer.