China’s box office back in business and busier than ever

China’s box office back in business and busier than ever, selling more tickets than before the health crisis.

TAKINGS at the beginning of the Lunar New Year holiday have already exceeded those in the same period of time two years ago.

And this is despite capacity restrictions due to the Covid pandemic.

According to the latest available data from Chinese ticketing platform Maoyan, China’s box office raked in around 4.5 billion yuan (€580 million) over the weekend, including the first three days of the celebrations.

This equates to an increase of a third compared to the same period in 2019.

In a statement, the platform said that “demand for movies in physical theaters remains healthy, especially considering the restriction of occupancy rate at 75% still persists [in some cities].”

Meanwhile, it’s a far different picture in Germany, where the number of visitors to cinemas fell by 68 per cent in 2020 with 80.5 million fewer cinemagoers compared to the previous year.

The sector only sold about 38 million tickets last year, and the turnover collapsed by almost €320 million.

And closures and restrictions took their toll on the number of cinema halls, which fell by 35 to a total of 4,926 across the country.

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