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.”

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.

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.

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.

As COVID-19 has spread across the globe, hundreds of governments are attempting to deal with the rapidly spreading pandemic. The first and most important factor in assessing the damage that coronavirus has caused is measured in human lives. According to the most recent accounts from the New York Times, coronavirus has sickened more than 170,400 people, with 6,619 deaths. The pandemic has spread to at least 140 countries.