In cities across China, long-stalled real estate projects—particularly those belonging to Evergrande—are being transformed into film sets for the country’s booming micro-drama industry.

In Xingyang, Henan province, through the opulent sales halls of an unfinished Evergrande project, production crews are filming family feuds and romance scenes while frustrated homebuyers wait for updates on their flats.

The micro-drama market has surged: in 2024, the market size exceeded fifty billion yuan, and it is projected to reach about sixty-three billion yuan in 2025 and nearly eighty-six billion yuan by 2027.

Audience numbers are also climbing rapidly.

In 2024, more than six hundred million viewers were tuning into micro-dramas nationwide, spanning major cities and smaller towns alike.

Production and investment in the sector are following suit.

Developers facing declining demand and overcapacity in property sectors are leasing their lavish and often nearly finished commercial and residential spaces to film crews.

Office blocks, model homes, malls, and showrooms are in demand as filming locations, especially in provinces such as Henan, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hebei, Sichuan, and Shaanxi.

Yet industry insiders caution that while these shoots bring temporary economic life to idle buildings, their broader impact remains constrained.

Many projects remain unfinished; the income from micro-dramas is small relative to the costs of sustained maintenance or completion of large property developments.

Regulatory uncertainties and location oversupply mean many regions struggle to attract production.

The phenomenon also highlights China’s property crisis: high vacancy rates, falling rents, and a surplus of commercial space are pressuring developers to find alternative revenue streams.

According to property consultancy CBRE, the average office vacancy rate was around twenty-three and a half percent at the end of the first quarter of 2025, with average rents falling by nearly three percent quarter-on-quarter.

In response, major developers like Greenland Holding Group have struck partnerships with leading micro-drama producers.

Over twenty commercial and residential properties in Zhengzhou are now offered as filming locations, with an expected capacity to host over one thousand micro-dramas annually.

While the micro-drama boom provides short-term relief, experts emphasize it does not solve the deeper issue of the real-estate overhang, the stalled construction of promised homes, and homebuyer dissatisfaction across many cities.