Horror could be the natural meeting ground for Taiwanese and Indonesian producers, according to a K7 Media study of Indonesia's film and television market presented by Trang Nguyen at Taiwan Creative Content Fest in Taipei this week.
The stakes are considerable. Indonesia is Southeast Asia's largest economy and its biggest film market, generating $352.9 million in box office revenue in 2025, according to figures drawn from PwC, Box Office Mojo and CJ CGV Vietnam. That is 1.6 times the size of Vietnam's box office and five times Thailand's, while the market's 5.1% compound annual growth rate outpaces the Asia-Pacific average of 4.3%.
Local titles dominate the multiplexes. Indonesian films made up 201, or 43%, of 2025 releases but captured 64% of admissions with 82.6 million tickets sold, per Cinepoint data via the Asian Contents and Film Market. That more than doubles the 36.9 million admissions for 100 U.S. releases, while 27 Japanese films drew 3.3 million admissions and 61 Korean and 16 Chinese titles each pulled in 2 million.
Three local productions sit in the 10 million-plus admissions club: Imajinari's 2025 comedy 'Agak Laen: Menyala Pantiku!,' Visinema's 2025 animated fantasy adventure 'Jumbo' and MD Pictures' 2022 horror 'KKN di Desa Penari.' Horror is the genre Indonesia produces most for cinemas, with five of the 10 most-attended local films since 2011 being horror pictures, and recent hits often mixing scares with comedy or drama. Foreign horror can also break out: Korean hit 'Exhuma' lifted local theatrical interest in Korean films after its 2024 run, and the study singled out 'The Rope Curse 4' as a recent Taiwan-Indonesia collaboration.
Remakes offer a second route in. The Indonesian version of Korean film 'Miracle in Cell No. 7' sold around 5.8 million tickets in 2022 and spawned a sequel and an animated offshoot, while 'Kang Mak from Pee Mak,' a local take on Thai horror-comedy 'Pee Mak,' drew around 4.9 million admissions in 2024. Adaptations need not be film-to-film: a big-screen version of the 2016 Korean series 'Descendants of the Sun' is in production for Indonesian cinemas in 2027.
On television, five commercial groups lead the market, including MNC Group, Emtek/SCM, Trans Media, Viva and MD Entertainment. Sinetron, the local soap format, remains the backbone of series output, produced in bulk, airing daily or several nights a week and often running to hundreds of episodes. Recent examples include RCTI's 'Terikat Janji,' which bowed in April 2026, and Indosiar's 'Merangkai Kisah Indah,' launched in July 2025, alongside religious dramas such as RCTI's 'Amanah Wali' and SCTV's 'Istiqomah Cinta.' Streamers, by contrast, package romance in shorter runs for younger viewers and lean on crime, revenge and action for premium programming.
Vidio, launched in 2014, is the country's largest streaming platform by cumulative reach as of 2026, releasing its first local original in 2019 and partnering with Wattpad to adapt web novels. Netflix arrived in 2016 but was blocked by state-owned telecom Telkom until 2020; it is now the leading international streamer, with 'The Cigarette Girl' in 2023 as its first Indonesian original. Disney+ launched in 2020 as Disney+ Hotstar, rebranded in October 2025 and signed a deal with Vidio in October 2026 for a joint package, while Viu entered in 2016 and Chinese-owned WeTV and iQiyi have pushed aggressively into the market.
For sellers of finished shows, streaming is the most open door. Korean series made up 50% of Netflix Indonesia's top 50 most-watched titles between January and September 2026, ahead of Indonesian (22%), U.S. (14%) and Chinese (6%) fare. Microdrama is also crossing into the mainstream: RCTI brought the format to broadcast TV in January 2026, MNC Digital Entertainment launched the V+Short app in June 2026 and Vidio partnered with ReelShort in September 2026 to add more than 200 titles dubbed into Bahasa Indonesia.
Taiwan's own foothold remains narrow. 'Meteor Garden' is still a cultural touchstone from the 2000s, but there is little nostalgic goodwill beyond it, and many viewers cannot distinguish a Taiwanese series from a mainland Chinese or Hong Kong one. Taiwanese streamer Catchplay+ operates in Indonesia, though its reputation rests on Hollywood movies rather than Asian drama.
Beyond horror, the K7 Media study flagged foreign-drama specialist channels and streamers as buyers of finished dramas, along with IP adaptations into films and scripted series, Bahasa-language educational children's content delivered digitally and the broader film sector. It also urged Taiwanese companies to look past straight content sales and invest in promotion, pointing to JAFF Market, set for Nov. 28 to 30 at the Jogja Expo Center in Yogyakarta, as a place to start building ties with the local industry.
