Hundreds of millions of people are stuck in cities around China during this lunar New Year holiday because coronavirus restrictions are halting a travel season that is usually the world’s largest annual migration. Instead, they’ll be watching movies – and fueling the bubble at the box office.
“Detective Chinatown 3”, the latest installment in a longtime buddy series, has grossed an estimated $ 397 million, according to Maoyan, who tracks ticket sales in the country. It set a world record for the biggest opening weekend in a single market. The previous record holder, “Avengers: Endgame”, raised $ 357 million at its weekend opening in the United States and Canada in 2019.
The strong performance was a powerful reminder of the power of the Chinese consumer. While the Chinese economy roared back as the country largely tamed the coronavirus, buyers and moviegoers were slowly opening their wallets.
Now people like Sophia Jiang are ready to spend, even on a movie that has received lukewarm reviews.
Over the lunar New Year holiday, Ms. Jiang, a 40-year-old freelance writer, usually travels with her parents to her hometown in the northern province of Jilin. But authorities this year imposed restrictions on visits to ancestral homes to stem coronavirus outbreaks. Photos circulated on Chinese social media showed horrific empty railroad cars at a time when travelers were usually packed shoulder to shoulder.
Jiang, stuck in the southern city of Shenzhen, has so far gone to the movies three times during the seven-day holiday, which ends on Wednesday. “Detective Chinatown 3,” she said, was the worst of the bunch.
“The story was not that bad,” Ms Jiang said, “but it was not great either, and I fell asleep twice.”
Apart from quality, China’s booming box office returns are a promising sign for the global film industry, which has caused large and small movie theaters to decline through the pandemic and worries about the future of film screenings.
According to Tuesday morning, China’s total box office sales for the new year reached $ 1.55 billion, according to local cashier trackers. In contrast, total ticket sales last year in the United States, where many theaters hang for survival, amounted to $ 2.2 billion.
“Some have argued that during the pandemic, people got used to watching online entertainment at home,” Jane Shao, president of Lumière Pavilions, a Chinese film chain, said in a telephone interview. “But I think it’s proof that movie theaters are an effective place for socializing.”
Ms Shao, who oversees 40 cinemas in 26 cities in China, said the proceeds from the lunar new year box office were like ‘day and night’ compared to last year, when the outbreak of the virus in Wuhan the government asked theaters in the beginning of the holiday. The recovery was slow, she said, but recent numbers have been encouraging.
“It has been a devastating year for our industry, but people are delighted to return to the theaters,” she said. Shao said.
‘Detective Chinatown 3’ was initially to be released during the holidays last year. China’s theaters reopened mostly in July, but most were limited to 75 percent seating during the month’s holidays, and only 50 percent in areas such as Beijing, which recently had small outbreaks.
The theaters were instructed not to sell concessions, and to make further profit. Movie prices were higher than usual during the holidays, which helped overcome the gap.
The film features two bumpy detectives, played by Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran, who go to Tokyo to investigate the murder of a powerful businessman. The public criticized online the excessive advertising for product placement, scenes of abuse of women and scattered plot threads. But the film benefited from the strong recognition of the “Detective Chinatown” brand.
The Lunar New Year holiday has traditionally been a sought-after window for movie releases, and moviegoers have a more diverse selection to choose from than in recent years. According to Maoyan, he came in second place this weekend, ‘Hi, Mom’, a travel comedy that earned $ 161.9 million. ‘A Writer’s Odyssey’, an adventure film, ranks third with $ 48.4 million.
Rudolph Tang, 41, a critic of classical music, said he had seen all three. But he said he was especially obligated to watch “Detective Chinatown 3” in part because he remembered seeing a poster for the film on the facade of the historic Grand Cinema in Shanghai, when the coronavirus outbreak a years ago in China, when the normally bustling streets were emptied and cinemas closed.
“Seeing the film brought back many memories of the hardships that people went through,” he said. Tang said in a telephone interview. “I felt like I was making a statement that the scar had been cured in China and that people could now return to cinemas and watch movies.”
Last year, box office revenue was $ 3.13 billion in China, making it the largest film market in the world, ahead of the United States. But it is not clear whether the early momentum of the Chinese film industry could rise further this year than its 2019 performance, when it reached $ 9.2 billion in sales.
China’s success in the box office depends in part on Hollywood’s pace of recovery. Although local productions are on the rise, China still has a huge appetite for Hollywood movies, and many theater directors hope that titles like ‘No Time to Die’, the latest Bond movie, and Disney’s ‘Black Widow’ remain on schedule for theater releases later this year.
It’s also unclear what role the unique circumstances of this year’s Lunar New Year holiday could have played in the weekend’s impressive box office performance. According to Chinese state media, air travel decreased by 72 percent in the first week of the holiday travel period, compared to the same time last year. Train travel decreased by 68 percent in the first two weeks of the travel season compared to last year.
Yet it seems that the phenomenon of going to the movies after the lunar New Year holiday is here to stay.
“To celebrate the new lunar year in China, it traditionally means starting fireworks, eating dumplings and watching the Spring Festival Gala,” said Yin Hong, a film professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “Now, more and more, it’s going with the family to go movie with the family in the tradition.”
Coral Yang and Liu Yi contributed research.