China’s Cinemas to Soon Operate at 75% Capacity, as Pandemic Restrictions Ease

As North America's box office crumples, China's theatrical film business is back in an enormous way. A collection of high-profile local films released in China over the past week to coincide with the country's National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday period, which lasts eight days.

Rebecca Davis editorWith U.S. studio tentpoles dropping out of the theatrical calendar, Chinese blockbusters may find a rare opportunity to gain some traction abroad.

“The Pandemic Special,” which is the show’s 308th episode, is considered a stand-alone and is the first of its kind for the series.The kickoff to Season 24 sees the police shoot Token (the show’s main Black character) and go on a rampage killing kids who are out after curfew.

TikTok will seemingly continue to operate in the US after President Donald Trump gave his “blessing” to a proposed deal that will see the video-sharing app partnering with Oracle.The app, along with WeChat, had previously faced a download ban after the US government said they were both  “active participants in China’s civil-military fusion” and alleged that they collect “vast swaths of data from users, including network activity, location data, and browsing and search histories.”But it will now

Rebecca Davis editorDisney’s “Mulan” made only $6.47 million over its second weekend in China, allowing it to be handily defeated once again by the local war epic “The Eight Hundred,” according to data from industry tracker Maoyan.As of Sunday evening, the Disney title has earned a cumulative $36.5 million (RMB 247 million) in the key territory.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorRefresh for latest…: Christopher Nolan’s Tenet handily passed $200M overseas this weekend with a $25M offshore frame to bring the overseas box office to $214M. Including domestic, the global cume is now $250.1M.

Vivienne Chow Chinese sci-fi blockbuster “The Wandering Earth” was named film of the year by the China Film Directors Guild at its annual awards ceremony on Saturday night in Beijing, local media reported.The award ceremony, which took place coincided with the further re-opening of cinemas in China as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, also presented director of the year award (Hong Kong and Taiwan) to Derek Tsang for his 2019 youth drama “Better Days.” It was the second time that Tsang won the

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe English Premier League, soccer’s most lucrative club championship, will return to screens in China from this weekend.

TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance has reportedly chosen Oracle as a “technology partner” for its US operations after Microsoft’s bid to buy the platform’s American branch was rejected.As reported by The Washington Post, two anonymous sources said that Oracle was chosen on Sunday (September 13) to be TikTok’s technology partner, and that the companies had brokered a deal to alleviate criticism brought on by the Trump administration.The sources said that TikTok recently put forward a

76 Days— which follows exhausted doctors and nurses in Wuhan, China struggling to cope as the deadly global outbreak of the new coronavirus first originated — will be eagerly anticipated at the Toronto Film Festival as it's the first documentary from ground zero of the COVID-19 crisis to reach movie theaters. The irony is the ongoing global pandemic will keep New York City-based co-director Hao Wu from physically attending the world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on Sept.

Ben Croll At a panel hosted by the Venice Production Bridge – the industry section of the Venice Film Festival – earlier this week, delegates from the Italian, American, and Chinese industries shared the virtual stage with European regulators as they enumerated the challenges facing the global film business in the post-pandemic era.Jointly organized by Italy’s cultural heritage ministry (MiBACT) and motion picture association (ANICA) for the second year in a row, the panel brought together

Tom Grater International Film ReporterEXCLUSIVE: Epic Chinese war drama The Eight Hundred has been acquired for UK theatrical after mining box office gold in its native China.The film became the first blockbuster-level hit in the pandemic era when it released in China on August 21, grossing $336M in the territory to date, which places it at no.2 on the global box office chart for this year behind only Bad Boys For Life.Now, Trinity Cine Asia has moved to acquire UK and Ireland rights and has set

Disney's live-action version of Mulan is now available to stream on Disney+, and fans of the story are understandably excited to watch the remake.Actress Liu Yifei plays the lead in Mulan, and has been thrust into the global spotlight as a result of the iconic role. Here's everything you need to know about the star.Liu Yifei was born in China, and immigrated to America.Liu Yifei was born in Wuhan, China, on August 25, 1987.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Tenet” got off to a solid start on its debut in Chinese theaters on Friday. It opened on top of the box office and eased aside local champion “The Eight Hundred.”.By 7pm on opening day “Tenet” had earned RMB50 million ($7.31 million), according to the China Box Office service of Ent Group.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefTwo apartments in Beijing that are home to movie star Jackie Chan are being forcibly put up for auction. The reason appears to be an ownership dispute.The adjacent apartments in a residential compound in the capital city’s Dongzhimen district are where Chan and his family have lived since 2007.