China's Box Office Revenue Surpassed RMB20 Billion in 2020



Maoyan Entertainment ("Maoyan" or "the Company") (Hong Kong: 1896), a leading platform providing innovative Internet-empowered entertainment services in China, teamed up with China's leading social media platform Weibo to jointly release the 2020 China Film Market Report. The report shows that China's total box office revenue reached RMB20.417 billion (US$3.129 billion) in 2020, making it the largest movie market in the world for the first time, amid the global industry impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.To get more chinese entertainment news, you can visit shine news official website.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a severe impact on the global movie industry in 2020. In China, movie theaters were closed nationwide during the Chinese New Year holiday in late January, in an effort to control the virus, and started gradually reopening on July 20. Fueled by the successful containment of the pandemic and pent-up moviegoer demand for the in-theater movie experience, China's box office has shown a remarkable recovery since reopening in July, overtaking North America to become the world's largest movie market in 2020.

The total box office in China was RMB20.417 billion (US$3.129 billion) in 2020, a decrease of 68.2% year-on-year and a decrease of 66.5% compared to 2018. The national box office revenue for 2020 made China the largest movie market in the world for the first year on record.

According to a mid-December preliminary estimate by The Hollywood Reporter, the North American box office is estimated to have reached $2.3 billion in revenue in 2020.

The total box office revenue since cinemas resumed operations on July 20 was RMB18.061 billion. According to multiple indicators, by December China's film market had broadly recovered by more than 90% year-on-year, with the total box office tally reaching 92% and the total number of movie tickets sold reaching 90%, compared to the same period last year. By December, average screening attendance had reached 95% of its previous-year number, the average ticket price recovered to 103% of its previous-year price, and the number of newly released movies in December remained the same as December 2019.
Historical war dramas, including "The Eight Hundred" and "The Sacrifice," made a significant contribution to the movie market recovery in 2020. The two titles combined grossed RMB4.23 billion at the box office, accounting for one-fifth of the total revenue this year.

Movies with an average rating of over nine on Maoyan's platform accounted for 59.5% of the total box office revenue in 2020, down from 65.3% in 2019, indicating that ratings were not the key driver of box office success in 2020. Feel-good genres like historical war dramas, comedy and romance were the most popular genres in 2020.