Jack Reacher China Tour - Shanghai Premiere (Photo : Getty Images)
On the third week of December, China outpaced the U.S. as the largest movie market when its theater screens reached 40,917 because 26 screens were added every day the past 12 months. However, growth in terms of box-office receipts slowed down in the second quarter.
Variety reported that box-office receipts in China for the year that just ended reached 45.3 billion yuan, up just 3 percent from the 43.9 billion yuan in 2015. In contrast, the growth rate was 49 percent in 2015.
1 Ticket per Chinese
For 2016, ticket sales grew almost 9 percent to 1.37 billion tickets or one per China’s population from 1.26 billion in 2015. However, while volume went up, the average price of a movie ticket went down to 32.9 yuan in 2016 from 34.8 yuan in 2015, according to data from the Ent Group.
China’s box-office receipt was impressive for the first half of 2016 due to the unexpected hit of Stephen Chow’s “The Mermaid” which earned and broke records at 3.39 billion yuan. This was followed by “Zootopia” produced by Disney and the recent “The Great Wall” which earned almost 1 billion yuan.
Hit Hollywood Movies
Other Hollywood films that earned at least $100 million in China were “Warcraft” by Universal Pictures ($221 million), “Captain America: Civil War” by Walt Disney ($190 million) and “Kung Fu Panda” by DreamWorks Animation ($154 million), Investopedia reported.
Rob Cain, a producer and consultant to Hollywood studios, said the slowdown was something unavoidable. It turned out the impressive growth rate the last five years turned out to be partly padded because movie distributors purchased tickets in large quantities and sell it at a discounted rates to bring moviegoers to the country’s cinema.
Other reasons behind the second half box-office receipts slowdown include the movie audience becoming more mature and discerning in terms of films too watch.
