The Canadian format company IMAX Corp. is making a rush into China, hoping to carve a slice of the country's movie industry pie.

On July 21, IMAX inked an agreement with Guangzhou Jinyi Film & Television Group to open eight IMAX theaters in China, which are scheduled to be completed by December 2010.

IMAX is trying to solidify its foothold in China with an ambitious plan to increase China's total IMAX theaters to at least 65 by 2014. There are currently 23 IMAX theaters in China.

Prior to this, the company entered a partnership with Huayi Brothers Media Corp. to make three IMAX-formatted movies. The first one, Aftershock, is expected to reap at least 500 million yuan ($73.7 million) at the box office, a record high for any Chinese movie.

"China, Russia and Japan are our biggest growing points right now," said Richard Gelfond, chief executive of IMAX Corp. "The exploding number of new theaters and rapid growth of the middle class population in China have given IMAX new impetus to grow in this market."

The company's strategy is to penetrate first-tier cities by setting up more theaters and introducing portable IMAX theaters in second-tier cities, which have no equivalent infrastructure available yet. Portable theaters, as Gelfond described, are like the bubble over a tennis complex, which can be blown up temporarily and then taken down easily. With this technology, IMAX will be able to overcome the shortage of facilities in less developed cities and expand its presence further.