The annual consumption of Coco-Cola per capita in the regional markets mentioned

As China’s vast interior gets richer, Grenda Lee, Coco-Cola’s Shanghai-based director of external affairs, finds herself dreaming about tapping the country’s rural market. Chinese peasants account for roughly 70 percent of China’s 1.3 billion people, but on average each drinks only three Coke products a year. That compares with some 60 drinks consumed annually in Shanghai and Beijing, 150 in Hong Kong and 420 in the United States. With so many customers at stake, potential profits take on epic scale.

In any movie theater any summer, you can practically hear the atrophying of brain cells. Summer pictures don’t insult the audience’s intelligence so much as they ignore it, playing instead to the mass-market inner child. But with most big films serving as a form of pop-cultural potty training, there’s a grand void to be filled for viewers who have not sent their brains to summer camp — who want the occasional film to speak to their inner grownup.