The cinema industry in China

In the 1920s, American cinema specialists went to Shanghai to train Chinese filmmakers. They may not have imagined that this same country would one day have the world's highest-grossing films.

In 1905, with the making of the first Chinese film, titled "Dingjun Mountain," China's cinema industry was born. With Americans' help, they were able to learn the rules of cinema and filmmaking. The influence of this training was visible for years on China's productions and the best Chinese films.

Many experts in this field divide Chinese cinema into six distinct generations. But today the cinema industry in China, like other industrial and economic sectors of this country, is seeing very substantial growth that is not comparable with the past. Chinese feature films began a striking advance from around 2012. Over a 10-year plan, it was able to attain an important position in cinema worldwide.

Chinese cinema, the world's largest cinema box office in 2021

The Chinese went from a 7.9 percent share of the global box office in 2012 to a share equivalent to 34.3 percent of the global box office in 2021. In that same year they took the title of the highest-grossing cinema box office among all countries with a cinema industry. Revenue amounting to 7.3 billion dollars that year and a 2.8 billion dollar gap from their rival, the United States, kept China's cinema industry firmly at the top of the table.

Producing the best Chinese films

China's filmmaking industry jumped in the years 2014 to 2018. In 2018, Chinese cinema, by producing 1082 films, posted a notable figure. But after that year the upward trend in Chinese productions turned into a downward trend and their number declined every year. Typically, 80 percent of China's box office belongs to domestic productions. For example, in 2021, eight of the highest-grossing films in world history belonged to China's domestic productions.

The next chart specifies how many films are released each year in China's cinema industry. Based on it, the highest volume of film releases is in 2019. The impact of COVID-19 is also evident in the number of Chinese feature film copies in release. Because in 2020, only 325 Chinese film titles were released. This volume is even lower than the number of releases in 2015.

Competition between domestic Chinese films and foreign films

As noted earlier, roughly 80 percent of films released and high-grossing in China's cinema industry are this country's domestic works. In the next two charts you will see the box office of domestic Chinese films and foreign films. These two charts show that the balance tips toward the best Chinese films relative to foreign films.

In a comparison covering 2015 to 2022, every year domestic Chinese feature films, because of the high volume of production and release, have been able to post higher sales than international works in release. This indicates China's attention to native and domestic cinema and the Chinese public's reception of Chinese film productions.

The highest-grossing films of Chinese cinema in 2022

In 2022, the title of highest-grossing and most-watched Chinese film, with sales amounting to 4.07 billion yuan (equivalent to more than 500 million US dollars) at the box office, went to the film "The Battle at Lake Changjin."

Drama, the most popular film genre of China's cinema industry

Looking at the Chinese cinema box office from 2020 to 2022, we find that the drama and comedy film genres are among the most popular and best cinema genres among Chinese audiences. Because over these 3 years, they accounted for 79 percent of box office volume. Science-fiction, war, and action genres of Chinese films also rank next.

The best filmmaking companies in China (2020)

The Chinese filmmaking company Bona Film in 2020, by earning 14 billion yuan, was able to pull ahead of other rivals. This Chinese cinema company ranked first among the highest-grossing film production companies in 2020 based on box office revenue. After this company, Beijing Culture Media with sales of 8.51 billion yuan and then Huaxia Film Distribution with 7.44 billion yuan ranked second and third in the table of the best in China's filmmaking industry.

Number of cinema auditoriums in China

China has seen 9 years of growth in the construction and development of cinema auditoriums. This growth began in 2012, with 3 thousand cinema auditoriums in China. By the end of 2021, their total reached 14 thousand and 201 cinema screens. Therefore China's cinema industry, just as it was able to advance day by day in the global box office, has also succeeded in building cinema auditoriums. Such progress indicates China's attention to the high-revenue cinema industry in making Chinese films.

China's highest-revenue cinema complexes

According to available statistics in 2022, "Wanda" cinema complexes earned 5.16 billion yuan. With a gap of roughly 3 billion yuan from their rival, they were able to sit at the top of the table of China's highest-grossing large cinema centers in 2022.

Age range of Chinese feature film fans

According to a survey available in 2022, 46 percent of China's cinema audiences are people aged 20 to 29. Among them, the share of men is higher than that of women.

Film viewing in China's cinemas

Based on the statistics, in 2022 cinema audiences in China watched two films per person per year. It should be noted that in this year, a total of 712 million cinema tickets were sold in China. In the same year, about 35 percent of admissions had gone to the cinema between 2 and 5 times.

COVID-19, the biggest blow to Chinese cinema

With the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in China, many social activities in this country, including cinemas, were halted. The 17.3 percent drop in Chinese films' share of the global box office in 2022 is in fact the impact of COVID-19. Thus COVID-19 acted as a barrier to the advance of China's cinema industry and stopped this country's record-breaking in 2021. In 2022, with a 36 percent decline relative to the previous year, cinema in China succeeded in selling 4.35 billion dollars at its box offices.

Dreaming of a return to the peak of the Chinese cinema industry

According to the statistics, in the first 6 months of 2023, China's cinema industry succeeded in selling 3.7 billion dollars at the domestic box office. This indicates a 0.8 percent gap from the sales volume in 2019. A 115 percent increase in China's productions relative to the COVID-19 pandemic year (2022) has revived hopes among the Chinese of returning to the top of the global sales table. It should be noted that these Chinese feature film statistics are 15.7 percent short of the Chinese record-breaking in 2021.

Conclusion

The film and cinema industry in China, over a 10-year period, was able to achieve remarkable flourishing. The Chinese gradually, in 2021, were able to hold the title of the world's most-watched films among all countries of the world. But with the outbreak and spread of COVID-19 this growth stopped. The destructive effects of COVID-19 on industries, including China's cinema industry, were fully evident. But with the passing of this period, murmurs of Chinese cinema's return to its peak can be heard. The Chinese are also successful in building cinema auditoriums and attracting audiences. The volume of Chinese film and series productions in this country is expanding day by day. These points indicate the Chinese government's direct attention to the filmmaking and cinema industry and to using the economic and cultural capacities inherent in this art.

Sources

• statista.com China film industry report
• 53 percent growth of Chinese cinema / author: Hossein Shayesteh / ISNA news agency
• https://www.isna.ir