China's influence on Hollywood film-making has been underscored by statistics just released by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which confirm that the country has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest box office territory, and the biggest outside the US.

The MPAA's Theatrical Market Statistics 2012 show China's cinema audience is worth $2.7bn (£1.7bn), up from $2bn in 2011, taking it past Japan, whose total increased only slightly from $2.3bn to $2.4bn. The US was still the biggest by some distance, with a value of $10.8bn in 2012, a 6% rise on 2011.

"China is building 10 screens a day," MPAA chief Chris Dodd told Deadline. "There's a voracious appetite for product and [US] films have done well."

The results underline the gains that Hollywood stands to make by tailoring its product for the Chinese market. A report last year by Ernst & Young suggested that at the current rate of expansion, the Chinese box office was set to pass the US in seven years.

Pressure from the highest levels of government saw China begin to relax its strict quotas the release of foreign-made films earlier this year, after a visit to the US by China's president Xi Jinping.