China overtakes N. America at box office
In the future, I believe more moviegoers can watch the latest movies on their smartphones. When that day comes, people will have more choices to see movies, whether on giant or small screens. And it will surely give a boost to films’ box office performance. Gao Qunyao, CEO of the Smart Cinema
BEIJING: China has overtaken North America for the first time on quarterly box office takings.
Boosted by the likes of blockbusters like Operation Red Sea, Detective Chinatown 2, Monster Hunt 2, The Ex-File: The Return of the Exes and Forever Young, total revenue for the first quarter of the year reached 20.22 billion yuan ( RM12.7 billion).
In the China market, only two Hollywood blockbusters — Black Panther and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle — ranked among the top ten.
Anti-terrorism action film Operation Red Sea topped the chart, raking in over 36.1 billion yuan, the second-highestgrossing Chinese film ever.
China’s box office sales totalled more than 5.72 billion yuan during the week-long Spring Festival holiday, breaking the previous sales record for the period.
The figure represented a growth of 66.94 per cent over the same period last year, according to the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of China.
Over 1.3 billion yuan (about RM820 million) in ticket sales were recorded on Feb 15, the first day of the Lunar New Year. That was a new record.
The fantasy film Monster Hunt 2 made 550 million yuan in revenue on its opening day, breaking the record set by Fast & Furious 8, which brought in 478 million yuan on its opening day.
“The Spring Festival season has the highest output ratio at the box office. Movie companies will continue to release their important productions during the season, making the competition even fiercer,” said Zhao Xiaonan, co-founder of Filmath, a Chinese site that provides movie data analysis via artificial intelligence.
Operation Red Sea, the first movie co-produced with the PLA Navy, is loosely based on the evacuation of Chinese citizens and foreign nationals from Yemen during the civil war there in 2015. And Detective Chinatown 2, the Chinese version of Sherlock Holmes, combines comedy with mystery elements.
“I watched the movie Detective Chinatown 2 three times, as I am really into the plot device of using fengshui (also known as geomancy) as clues. Also, it was shot largely in New York City, including many landmark locations like Times Square, Fifth Avenue and the Brooklyn Bridge, making it attractive and intriguing to domestic and international audiences alike,” said Zhang Xiaobin, a college student at Beijing Normal University.
The number of cinema screens in China reached more than 53,000 by the end of 2017, with more cinemas to be built this year.
As a result, watching first-run movies is no longer an exclusive privilege for people living in first- and second-tier cities.
Moreover, the China Research Institute of Film Science and Technology has taken a series of measures to create “smart cinemas”, recently releasing an app with the same name.
“The operation of smart cinemas is still in an early stage, so researchers have to tackle lots of problems. In the future, I believe more moviegoers can watch the latest movies on their smart phones,” said Gao Qunyao, CEO of the Smart Cinema app. “When that day comes, people will have more choices to see movies, whether on giant or small screens. And it will surely give a boost to films’ box office performance.”