China Box Office Nears $500K On First Day Of Cinema Reopenings; Beijing Lowers Emergency Response Level

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorChina’s third Friday back to the movies scored a slight increase on last week’s comparable day at $4.38M. It’s short of the $7.6M generated last Sunday which was boosted by Warner Bros’ reissue of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, but still a jump on last Friday, while midweeks were solid.

Hollywood is guilty of censoring its films to placate China and avoid losing access to the country’s hugely lucrative box office market, a report has claimed.

Dominic Patten, Ted Johnson A day that Attorney General William Barr, Sen.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorWhile Universal’s Dolittle and Warner Bros’ reissue of Interstellar were the big kahunas in China this weekend, Russell Crowe-starrer Unhinged hit the road in 19 new markets over the session. Among them, the UK, Australia, Netherlands and New Zealand where the Solstice Studios pic was No.

Universal'sDolittletopped China's box office for a second week as the country's cinemas continued their tentative reopening following the novel coronavirus shutdown.

Rebecca Davis editorLocal content is proving more of a draw than Hollywood films as China’s cinemas get back on their feet.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorSATURDAY UPDATE: Since cinemas reopened in China’s low-risk areas on July 20, the market today had its biggest day yet. Box office was $5.74M (RMB 40M) overall for the day, according to Maoyan figures.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorChina’s second Friday with cinemas back to business in low-risk areas rang up another $4M at local turnstiles, a 39% increase versus the same day last week. About 60% of movie theaters are now operating, with capacity limits and social distancing still in place, so all numbers are to be taken with a grain of salt, though they are encouraging.

China’s theatrical box office would overtake that of North America.That scenario hasn’t happened yet. Last year, China’s box office growth slowed to a pedestrian 5% and reached a $9 billion total, according to the Motion Picture Association.

Rebecca Davis editorRobert Downey Jr.’s family film “Dolittle” and Sony’s thriller “Bloodshot” led China’s first opening weekend at the box office since the coronavirus outbreak, a sign that new titles sell better than re-runs of beloved classics. Five out of the top 10 films this weekend were Hollywood titles.China began reopening theaters in regions deemed at low risk for COVID-19 on Monday.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorOn their first Friday back to operations, Chinese cinemas did roughly $2.92M worth of box office business — more than tripling Thursday’s figures and making a sizable jump from Monday when theaters opened to about $501K in low-risk areas across the country.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorWith some of China’s cinemas reopened this week in low-risk areas, and as tomorrow sees Beijing get partially back to business as well, box office has continued to rise. As of 11:30PM tonight local time, Thursday’s takings hit $940K, according to ticketing service Maoyan.

Andreas Wiseman International EditorChinese state television is removing English Premier League soccer matches from their schedule amid the growing political feud between Beijing and the UK government.CCTV, which has the rights in China, won’t be showing the remainder of the current season, per a Bloomberg report.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorAs expected, Chinese authorities have given the go-ahead for cinemas in Beijing to reopen this coming Friday. That’s also when the first new Hollywood titles will hit the market, including Dolittle and Bloodshot.

Rebecca Davis editorBritish Hollywood director Simon West has been ordered by a Beijing tribunal to return $200,000 in directors fees to Chinese firm Hongmaisui HMS Entertainment in a legal dispute over an unmade 2014 film.HMS filed the case with the Beijing Arbitration Commission back in 2016, after the production was derailed by difficulties in procuring a visa for West that left him unable to enter China for pre-production at the scheduled time.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorEXCLUSIVE: Lots of movement on the international box office front this past weekend, and into the beginning of the week. Korean zombie sequel Peninsula, as we reported Sunday, made a meal of five overseas markets with a $21M Wednesday-Sunday frame.