Deng Chao plays a ruthless developer in Stephen Chow's latest comedy 'The Mermaid,' which has become China's biggest film ever. (Photo : YouTube/Toy Soldiers)
Although China’s box-office receipt grew by only 3 percent in 2016 because of a slowdown in the second half of the past year, the film with the highest box office in China beat its counterpart in the U.S.
China.org reported that Stephen Chow’s “The Mermaid” grossed 3.39 billion yuan, or $527 million, when shown in China. In comparison, the North America gross of Walt Disney’s “Finding Dory” was $486 million. However, including “The Mermaid’s” overseas box office, the number 1 movie in China earned a total of $553 million.
Movie Industry Bubble
However, “The Mermaid” appeared to be a bubble for the Chinese movie industry because the slowdown in the second half of 2016 crashed the forecast of a total box-office receipts for the year of 60 billion yuan or $8.64 billion. The slowdown was felt by failure of movies anticipated to become blockbusters to deliver box-office receipts.
Also to be blamed are the weak crop of movies and a reduction in subsidies, Newvision reported. The weakening of the yuan vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar contributed to the lower box-office receipts in dollar terms which fell to $6.6 billion from $6.8 billion.
Underperforming Films
The list of underperforming movies include “The Great Wall” by Zhang Yimou, “League of Gods” by Yang Longcheng and “I Am Not Madame Bovary” by Feng Xiaogang. Even beyond “The Mermaid’s” bubble effect, even the 49 percent growth rate of box-office receipts in 2015 – the highest on record – was also a bubble that gave false hopes to the local movie industry.
But one aspect where there was more impressive growth was the number of cinemas built which averaged 26 daily, bringing to 41,179 the total film screens in China and overtaking again the U.S.
For imported movies, the top grosser in China is “Zootopia” with 1.53 billion yuan ($234 million) box office, followed by “Captain America: Civil War,” “The Jungle Book,” “Finding Dory” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” The number of foreign films shown in China in 2016 was 92 which grossed 19.05 billion yuan.
