Why Did China Stop Going to the Movies?
Movieguide® Contributor
China used to have a strong flow of moviegoers, but now, young people are clutching their wallets.
“China’s once-booming theatrical box office has begun to crumble,” The Hollywood Reporter said Nov. 6. “Total movie ticket sales revenue in the country so far this year is down a whopping 22 percent compared to last year. The results represent a dramatic downturn from the strong post COVID recovery China’s film market achieved in 2023 when revenue surged 83 percent to finish the year at $7.73 billion.”
China’s movie business is largely dependent on holidays to make its revenue. Oct. 1 was China’s National Day, and the revenue dropped by 23% compared to 2023.
“This year’s slumping National Day week means that there is little chance of the overall down-trend for this year being reversed,” Variety reported Oct. 8.
“This year started strong for the Chinese industry, with box office during the Lunar New Year holiday week topping $1.1 billion, led by local blockbusters YOLO ($479.6 million) and PEGASUS 2 ($468.9 million). But a prolonged fallow period extending through the summer has left the Beijing film industry wringing its hands, wondering whether a lasting shift in the marketplace may be underway,” THR said. “Filmmakers and analysts suggest an overlapping array of factors are behind the earnings plunge, but the truth is, no one fully knows what’s gone wrong.”
The Coronavirus has shut down nearly all of China’s 70,000 theaters and has cost local movie business over $1 billion, reports Business Insider…
READ MORE: CORONAVIRUS SHUTTERS THEATERS ACROSS CHINA, BOX OFFICE LOSES OVER $1 BILLION
CAUGHT BY THE TIDE filmmaker Jia Zhangke says young people in particular aren’t going to cinemas, and the average attendee’s age has changed from 22 years old to 26.
“Throughout the West, the film business traditionally has been viewed as recession-proof,” THR reported. “Even during economic downturns, people need entertainment, and the cost of a movie ticket is a small enough discretionary item that most consumers can always afford it. There are worrying signs that such logic does not apply in China, according to insiders. For at least the past year, the Chinese economy has been stuck in its most significant slump in over a decade, as a cratering property market and pessimistic consumer sentiment drag on growth.”
Youth unemployment was at a record high of 21.3 percent in June, which is the last time China’s National Bureau of Statistics released a youth unemployment report. So it may be that youth simply can’t afford to see movies anymore.
“There’s widespread sentiment on social media about job insecurity, particularly among new college graduates and the mid-career crowd,” said James Li, co-founder of market research firm Fanink. “As a result of all this, people are holding their wallets tight.”
“In our recent qualitative research among the Gen Z population in China, younger people have shown a clear tendency to aspire for stability in life, as seen in the record-breaking number of applicants for government jobs in 2024 [over 3 million]. They don’t seem to be as ambitious or adventurous as the previous generations. Related to films, they report not liking taking the risk of spending time and money to see a movie that doesn’t meet their expectations. In fact, many complain that online marketing of movies is becoming increasingly misleading.”
Rance Pow, president of Asian box office consultation firm Artisan Gateway, expects Chian’s box office situation to get worse before the year is over. He attributes the downturn to gaming, mobile videos and the rise of short-form video platforms.
“The company projects box office finishing the year at $5.69 billion, down from $7.81 billion — a 27 percent plunge for the year and a 38 percent decline from the pre-pandemic peak of $9.2 billion in 2019,” THR added.
“By and large, Hollywood appears to have fully abandoned its once-bullish stance on China. And not without reason: In the first 11 months of this year, earnings for U.S. films totaled $797.3 million — still a significant sum, but a 68 percent decline from the $2.5 billion in sales during the same stretch back in 2019,” THR said. “Throughout the pandemic, China’s film regulators sharply curtailed the number of U.S. releases in the country (the number of American movie imports recovered in 2023, but so far this year just 29 U.S. titles have been released compared to 35 during the same stretch last year).” The number has declined since 2018, when China had over 60 U.S. movies in its theaters.
America and China’s relations have also become icier, which may have caused the Chinese to have a negative view of American entertainment.
“The production values of Chinese movies, meanwhile, have soared to a level of near-parity with Hollywood, giving consumers the easy option of taking in cinematic spectacle in their own language and culture instead of a foreign one,” THR said. “The only U.S. blockbusters to perform powerfully in China this year, not incidentally, have been creature films — GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE ($132.2 million), ALIEN ROMULUS ($110.2 million) and VENOM: THE LAST DANCE ($72 million and counting) — one of the few genres the Beijing industry has yet to master, largely because of censorship constraints.”
China’s suppression of American movies significantly affected the market downturn.
“If China had opened up a bit more to imported productions, that would at least give more vitality and abundance to the supply side,” Jia said. “But that’s unfortunately not happening. China is a country with 80,000 screens — we need more titles from around the world to fill them. Chinese films need to get better by way of more exchange with the outside world, and the viewers deserve more choices.”
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