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China’s box office roars while Hollywood remains on mute,all top 10 grossing films in China are domestic, US movies lose appeal

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China’s box office roars while Hollywood remains on mute,all top 10 grossing films in China are domestic, US movies lose appeal

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The Eight Hundred earned $450m last year to become China’s first top ranking global box office hit © CMC Pictures


Anna Nicolaou in New York and Christian Shepherd in Beijing
FEBRUARY 13 2021


China’s box office was off to a roaring start during the crucial Lunar New Year holiday while the majority of cinemas remain closed in North America, underscoring the diverging fates of the world’s two largest film markets. By 7pm on Friday in Beijing, China’s box office had already made Rmb1.7bn ($260m) in sales, according to booking service Maoyan, with 10 major homegrown films set for release during the holiday period.

The pandemic has brought a striking divergence between Hollywood, the long-running entertainment capital of the world, and China, which toppled the US last year as the biggest moneymaker in box-office sales. While cinemas in the US and Europe remain largely empty as the pandemic drags on, China’s box office has recovered sharply as movie attendance has returned to nearly normal levels. During the National day holiday, despite cinemas remaining limited to three-quarters seating capacity, ticket sales reached Rmb3.9bn, the second highest taking ever.

Hollywood executives and analysts fear the trend could persist even after the pandemic, as the US entertainment business moves towards online streaming. Warner Bros is releasing all of its films this year on its HBO Max streaming service alongside cinemas. Cinema-goers have a soft spot for movies that are made by their own country’s filmmakers David Chen, director of production at Versatile Media, a Hangzhou-based studio “It looks like more and more, [the US box office] will be a supplemental income to streaming,” said Jeff Bock, longtime box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations.

Cinema-goers have a soft spot for movies that are made by their own country’s filmmakers

David Chen, director of production at Versatile Media, a Hangzhou-based studio

“[The US] may never have a weekend again that even touches on what Chinese new year does this year,” he warned.

2020 also marked another milestone for China’s film industry: the first time that all of the country’s top 10 grossing films were made by Chinese studios. Over the past decade, Hollywood blockbusters have gone from dominating China’s box office top 10 to having to fight for a spot alongside local productions.

According to China’s national film industry development special fund management commission, imported films accounted for under 16 per cent of the total box office in 2020, down from 36 per cent in 2019. Ticket presales for Lunar New Year, a peak period for Chinese theatrical releases, were dominated by titles from Chinese studies. Detective Chinatown 3, the latest instalment in a popular slapstick comedy franchise by Wanda Pictures, is expected to top holiday rankings.

It had bookings of more than Rmb1bn ($155m) by Friday evening, according to Maoyan. Part of this dynamic is explained by the pandemic, which prompted US studios to postpone most of their blockbusters to later this year or 2022. And Hollywood has always faced state-imposed limits on its ability to reach and profit from Chinese audiences. Beijing’s film industry regulator maintains a quota of 34 imported films per year, and importers only get to keep 25 per cent of box office revenues — remaining income goes to state-owned China Film Group or Huaxia Film.


But these factors alone cannot explain the strength of Chinese-directed features in recent years. China’s studios have learned to match Hollywood with slick production, special effects and celebrity and franchise branding, while also becoming adept at tapping into national sentiment as a way to spur sales, a trend encouraged by the Chinese Communist party. “The local [Chinese] market spent 10 years inviting Hollywood to come show them the ropes. Now the local market has matured,” said a senior entertainment lawyer who works with the major studios. “It’s not easy to get films into the [Chinese] market, and even when you do, the revenues of fractions of what they used to be”. Mulan, Disney’s live-action remake of the 1998 animated film, was met by nationalist backlash in China, as pirated versions of the film surfaced on social media ahead of the official release. The film went on to make only $40m in China. Wonder Woman: 1984, the sequel to the hit film starring Gal Gadot, made $25m in China, less than a third of the $90m its 2017 predecessor brought in. However Disney’s Soul, a recent Pixar film, has performed relatively well, earning $56m in sales in China.



The surprise success of The Eight Hundred, which in 2020 brought in $450m to become China’s first top ranking global box office hit, underscored the subtle line Chinese studios have learned to walk in search of success. The wartime epic set in Shanghai during the 1937 Japanese invasion was originally delayed by a year because of its depiction of troops from the Nationalist Kuomintang army, which fought the Communist party during China’s civil war. But after changes required by the regulator, the film, which was released just as Chinese cinemas were reopening from months of lockdown, not only touched a nerve among audiences with its tale of Chinese soldiers banding together against overwhelming odds — it was also embraced by state media as “patriotic” and shown at Communist party screenings. “Cinema-goers have a soft spot for movies that are made by their own country’s filmmakers,” said David Chen, director of production at Versatile Media, a Hangzhou-based studio. “It is inevitable that they will gravitate to those films”.

 
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Congratulations to China. Chinese films are seen in China is a great achievement. China deserves congratulation for that.
 
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China’s Box Office Breaks World Record as U.S. Theaters Struggle with Bankruptcy
JOHN HAYWARD
15 Feb 2021

Chinese theaters reported over $263 million in movie ticket sales, breaking both world records and China’s previous single-day record from 2019. Theaters in Beijing and other large Chinese cities said some of their screenings were completely sold out. Seating capacity has been limited to 50 percent in movie theaters as a social distancing measure.

“As the first such moviegoing peak period following the COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] outbreak, this year’s Spring Festival holiday is of great importance to China’s film industry and is seen as a further mark of recovery in the box office market and also reveals Chinese people’s confidence in the country’s virus prevention and control,” the Global Times asserted.

Industry analysts and movie theater staff said one reason for the strong box office performance is that many Chinese decided to avoid traveling to visit relatives, as they traditionally do during the Lunar New Year holiday. This created a large pool of customers looking for holiday entertainment at their local movie theaters. Some Chinese customers said online that they saw going to the movies as a means of declaring victory over the coronavirus.

The top attraction at the Chinese box office was Detective Chinatown 3, an action-comedy originally scheduled for release a year ago, but was delayed due to the pandemic. It raked in $393 million during its opening weekend. The highest-grossing film in U.S. box-office history, Avengers: Endgame, made $357 million during its opening weekend in American theaters.

The number two spot in China was taken by Hi, Mom, a time-travel comedy-drama about a woman who journeys 20 years into the past and befriends her mother as a young woman.

The top movie at the U.S. box office over the weekend was The Croods: A New Age, an animated film that was released 12 weeks ago. It grossed about $2 million in ticket sales between Friday and Sunday, which would scarcely have made the Top 20 in a normal Valentine’s Day weekend before the pandemic.

Major American theater chains are struggling with bankruptcy after a year of complete shutdowns, sparse attendance at the few theaters that were open, and a drought of major new releases as big-budget movies were delayed time and again.

AMC Theaters announced in late January that it was saved from bankruptcy by an emergency infusion of $506 million from investors plus a $411 million line of credit extended by AMC’s European subsidiary. Even with this additional funding, AMC’s plan for avoiding bankruptcy is still ominously dependent on landlords slashing rent payments for theaters and audiences returning to theaters in significant numbers fairly soon.
CBS News summarized the dire financial situation facing the major American theater chains:
AMC, Cinemark, Regal and other theaters are also reporting revenue fallout as many of the year’s most anticipated blockbusters have either been postponed or released on streaming services. Movie theater companies saw their revenue plummet by more than 75% last spring and summer, according to data from the Motion Picture Association, Directors Guild of America and National Association of Theatre Owners.
Declines in attendance and revenue at AMC theaters in the U.S. reached 92% by the end of the third quarter of last year, leading the company to predict it would run out of cash by the end of 2020.
Numbers for the fourth quarter were no better. AMC saw a 92.3% drop in U.S. attendance in the fourth quarter, compared to the same period a year ago, according to a recent SEC filing. As of that time AMC was operating 438 of its 593 U.S. locations open with limited seating and was burning through roughly $125 million a month to do so, the filing states.
AMC warned of impending bankruptcy shortly before Christmas, after Warner Bros. announced their entire slate of films for 2021 would be released on the HBO Max streaming service the same day they were released to theaters, beginning with the long-delayed Wonder Woman 1984 and including major upcoming titles like Dune and the new Matrix sequel.
In essence, a sizable portion of the audience would be able to watch the movies that were expected to revive the American box office in 2021 for free, from their homes. Some theater industry analysts believe the old model of theaters enjoying exclusive access to new releases for months before they are made available for streaming will never fully return, which would deal a major blow to the business model for selling extremely expensive movie tickets.

 
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Excellent. Same thing will happen in the electric car market. Apple, Tesla, Hollywood films are all going down in the Chinese market.
 
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Top 2020 Movies at the Worldwide Box Office

RankMovieWorldwide Box OfficeDomestic Box OfficeInternational Box OfficeDomestic
Share
1Ba bai$472,566,886$472,566,886
2Wo He Wo De Jia Xiang$433,241,288$433,241,288
3Bad Boys For Life$424,291,710$204,417,855$219,873,85548.18%
4Tang Ren Jie Tan An 3$399,902,340$399,902,340
5Tenet$362,859,550$57,929,000$304,930,55015.96%
6Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Ressha-Hen$321,483,914$321,483,914
7Sonic The Hedgehog$304,978,999$146,066,470$158,912,52947.89%
8Dolittle$251,169,823$77,047,065$174,122,75830.68%
9Jiang Ziya$243,875,085$214,670$243,660,4150.09%
10Chai Dan Zhuan Jia Er$203,098,650$203,098,650
 
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Congratulations to China. Chinese films are seen in China is a great achievement. China deserves congratulation for that.
This is consumption-ability, understand?
what's your supapawa's box office?
let me see,aha,
List of Bollywood films of 2020
1# Tanhaji 367.65 crore (US$52 million)
and China 1# Ba bai US$472 million,9 times!
Is that your so-called 13 billion market?SUCH A HUGE MARKET!!! LOL
 
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Chinese New Year Box Office Hits $1.2B, Sets Record High Over Holiday Period
By Nancy Tartaglione
February 17, 2021 12:40pm

The Chinese New Year box office achieved yet another milestone Wednesday, with grosses for the holiday period growing to an estimated RMB 7.78 billion ($1.2 billion). This beats the previous all-time high set during the comparable 2019 holiday (RMB 5.9B). China often outdoes itself, but the fact that 2021’s Lunar New Year frame came with Covid capacity restrictions makes the performance even more staggering.

 
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This is consumption-ability, understand?
what's your supapawa's box office?
let me see,aha,
List of Bollywood films of 2020
1# Tanhaji 367.65 crore (US$52 million)
and China 1# Ba bai US$472 million,9 times!
Is that your so-called 13 billion market?SUCH A HUGE MARKET!!! LOL

If a Chinese film does better than a bollywood film in China, it is an achievement in China. I love this. Chinese should be proud of their achievements. If tomorrow, if Xi's popularity in China surpasses that of Biden's, Chinese should take pride.
 
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How many films does your shitty film industries produces?
If a Chinese film does better than a bollywood film in China, it is an achievement in China. I love this. Chinese should be proud of their achievements. If tomorrow, if Xi's popularity in China surpasses that of Biden's, Chinese should take pride.
that's your comprehension ability?
 
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The Chinese film industry is like the Indian film industry -- it's a captive market. Plus, both markets are big enough to support a vibrant industry, but there's little appeal for these films outside their region.

And let's not forget China controls what foreign films are allowed to be screened in China.

Nevertheless, Chinese chest-beating aside, comparing China and US film markets is like comparing apples and oranges. Theater attendance has been lagging for years, well before the COVID pandemic. These days streaming is king. It's the new business model that will supplant legacy mediums like theater and television.
 
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