{"id":94733,"date":"2022-04-18T10:13:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T04:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/china-box-office-falls-to-new-low-as-cinemas-hit-by-closures\/"},"modified":"2022-04-18T10:13:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T04:43:00","slug":"china-box-office-falls-to-new-low-as-cinemas-hit-by-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/china-box-office-falls-to-new-low-as-cinemas-hit-by-closures\/","title":{"rendered":"China Box Office Falls to New Low as Cinemas Hit by Closures"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>China\u2019s theatrical box office fell to a new low over the weekend as anti-COVID restrictions forces thousands of cinemas to close. <\/p>\n<p>Data from consultancy Artisan Gateway showed that nationwide box office across the world\u2019s most populous country amounted to just $10.5 million. That was the lowest scoring weekend of 2022 and means the year-to-date cumulative at $2.42 billion is now running some 28% below last\u2019s equivalent figure. <\/p>\n<p>Major cities in China are currently operating under a range of restrictions that range from citywide lockdown (Shanghai) to so-called static management (Suzhou) which also involve government-mandated restrictions on entertainment. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cFantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore\u201d held on as the top film for a second weekend, but with receipts of just RMB19.1 million ($3 million). After ten days in mainland Chinese cinemas, the film has amassed RMB93.3 million ($14.6 million).<\/p>\n<p>Chinese crime action film, \u201cMan on the Edge\u201d released officially on Friday and earned RMB15.7 million ($2.7 million) for second place over the weekend. Including its extensive previews, the iQiyi Pictures-backed film has a cumulative of RMB42.2 million ($6.6 million).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHotel Transylvania 4\u201d slipped back to third place with a weekend score of RMB8.1 million ($1.3 million). It now has a cumulative of RMB50.7 million ($7.9 million) since releasing on April 3.<br \/>\u201cEscape Room 2\u201d earned RMB3.9 million ($610,000) over the weekend, for a cumulative of RMB41.0 million ($6.4 million) since releasing on April 2.<\/p>\n<p>Fifth place over the weekend belonged to India\u2019s \u201cDrishyam,\u201d a 2015 Ajay Devgn-starring crime thriller, which earned RMB3.3 million ($513,000) in three days.<\/p>\n<p>It is the third Indian film to release in mainland Chinese cinemas this year since a thawing of previously frosty diplomatic relations. But the moves are timid at best and consist of releases of older titles, rather than current movies. <\/p>\n<p>January saw the release of 2019 film \u201cChhichore.\u201d That was followed in March by the release of 2018 Tamil-language film \u201cKanaa.\u201d Neither were allocated significant number of screens or released in peak season, and neither made the kind of impression that previous Indian blockbusters \u201cAndhadhun\u201d or Aamir Khan-starring hits \u201cDangal\u201d and \u201cSecret Superstar\u201d achieved. \u201cKanaa\u201d is still on release and has accumulated just $490,000 after a month in cinemas.<\/p>\n<p>The uphill task for \u201cDrishyam\u201d in China was made steeper still by the film being given a release after its hit Chinese remake \u201cSheep Without A Shepherd.\u201d \u201cSheep\u201d was released in late 2019 and grossed $191 million over a career that included a five-month COVID-hiatus in 2020.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China\u2019s theatrical box office fell to a new low over the weekend as anti-COVID restrictions forces thousands of cinemas to close. Data from consultancy Artisan Gateway showed that nationwide box office across the world\u2019s most populous country amounted to just $10.5 million. That was the lowest scoring weekend of 2022 and means the year-to-date cumulative [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":94734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,3,105,106],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/China-Box-Office-Falls-to-New-Low-as-Cinemas-Hit.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94733"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}