China’s box office overtakes North America’s for the first time with its earlier pandemic recovery

By Eva Dou,

Wu Hong EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

A cinema in a shopping mall in Beijing last week.

SEOUL — China’s movie ticket sales have surpassed North America’s for the first time in history, according to several industry trackers, as China’s entertainment industry recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.

Some quibbling over the data remains: Some analysts say North America is still a hair ahead, while others have pulled the trigger and put China at No. 1, but there’s agreement that China will be moving into a clear lead over the next year, as its growing middle class watches more movies than its American counterpart.

It’s one of the latest indicators of economic recovery in China, the nation that suffered the first covid-19 outbreak. China on Monday announced its economy grew 4.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier.

[China pulls ahead among major economies in pandemic recovery]

“This is the first time in history,” said Lighthouse, a Chinese movie industry data tracker, in a post on its Weibo social media account. “What’s even more worthy of pride is that 85 percent of these movies are domestically made. Go Chinese movies!”

China and North America are neck-and-neck at the box office, with some dispute over which one is ahead. Lighthouse puts China’s box office receipts so far this year at $2.02 billion — which is ahead of Box Office Mojo’s North America tally of $1.94 billion, but behind ComScore’s North America tally of $2.1 billion.

Jane Tian, a 34-year-old Beijing resident, said she was eager to go to the movies again when they reopened in the summer. When she went to see a movie in August, audience members were only allowed to sit in one out of every three seats.

By September, they could sit in every other seat. Now, 75 percent of seats in a theater can be occupied.

“They check your temperature at the entrance of the movie theater, and people still wear face masks, but it’s largely returned to normal,” said Tian, a pharmaceutical executive, by telephone on Tuesday.

At public places like shopping malls, consumers still have to show their official QR codes that prove they are coronavirus-free, Tian said. But she has noticed shoppers are out in droves, after they were all stuck indoors for the early part of this year.

Before the novel coronavirus pandemic, China had been widely expected to surpass North America in movie ticket sales this year, as its middle class grows and movie theater construction continues across the country. That title was thrown into question when the pandemic shuttered all its movie theaters.

Ultimately, the pandemic has proved disruptive around the world, with the pain longer-lasting in the West. The United States is suffering a new wave of virus cases that is continuing to hinder movie theater operation in major cities. France imposed a curfew in Paris and other urban centers last week, as virus case counts rose.

The world’s second-largest movie theater chain, Cineworld, said earlier this month it would close its U.S. and British outlets until conditions improved.

[As U.S. movie theaters reopen, some employees are reluctant to return]

In China, theaters began reopening in July, months after most other industries were allowed to reopen. Ticket sales got a boost this month during the “Golden Week” holiday, although they still fell short of 2019, according to a tally from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

After touting that they have nearly stamped out the virus within their borders, Chinese officials have taken drastic measures to quash any new potential outbreaks. In the eastern port city Qingdao, authorities ordered all 9 million residents to be tested this month, after a cluster of 12 cases was discovered.

Amid the trade war with the United States, Chinese nationalism has squeezed the market for Hollywood films, while helping domestic movies become hits. Top-grossing films this month include Chinese war epic “The Eight Hundred” and “My People, My Homeland,” produced by esteemed Chinese director Zhang Yimou.

Lyric Li and Liu Yang in Beijing contributed to this report.

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Source:WP