Another US export China is learning to do without: Hollywood films, as domestic productions step up
- Cinema box office takings in China hit a new high in 2019, led for the first time by two domestic blockbusters. Only two Hollywood films made the top 10
- At this rate, China’s film ecosystem may soon thrive independently of Hollywood, as India’s does. Will Chinese films also compete globally with US studios’?
The past year has been a heady time at the film box office. The first part of 2019 brought a massive interstellar action spectacle that broke records, while the summer yielded a computer-generated colossus that packed cinemas week after week.
The movies in question? Not Avengers: Endgame and The Lion King, the twin blockbusters that anchored the Hollywood calendar. They’re The Wandering Earth and Nezha , Chinese-language films that, though little known in the West, became two of the biggest hits in Chinese history.
The films collectively grossed US$1.3 billion this year in China, the largest 1-2 punch in the country’s history. That means the three highest-grossing films ever in China are something once thought impossible: Chinese.
With nearly US$9 billion in box office takings last year, China has become the second-largest film market in the world. It’s more than four times the size of third-place Japan and is closing in on the United States (nearly US$12 billion). China is so large that it generates more box office dollars than the next six markets combined.
In recent months a surprising – and, for Hollywood, troubling – trend has emerged: China is achieving much of that success with its own films.
