BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s 2024 box office revenue slumped by almost a quarter from the previous year, official data showed on Wednesday, dealing a blow to a limping domestic industry yet to fully recover from the pandemic.
Box office revenue totalled 42.502 billion yuan ($5.82 billion), according to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. That’s down 22.6% from 54.915 billion yuan in 2023.
Of that, box office revenue of domestic films totalled 33.439 billion yuan, plunging 27.3% from 46.005 billion yuan in 2023.
Hopes for a post-pandemic uptick in box office revenue for the second year were dashed despite successes including “YOLO”, a comedy on how a reclusive woman reconnected with society through boxing, and “Successor”, another comedy, on how a couple hid their wealth from their son to promote character building.
The slump was caused by a mix of factors – a decline in the number of feature films, competition from online offerings including micro dramas, and a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.
On Christmas Eve, box office revenues plummeted to the lowest in at least 13 years.
For the whole of 2024, the number of moviegoers in urban theatres totalled 1.01 billion, down from 1.299 billion a year earlier.
A total of 612 feature films were produced last year, down from 792 in 2023.
The fall in offerings reflects ebbing investment and output capacity in an industry still struggling with the aftermath of strict COVID-19 restrictions, which disrupted movie production from 2020 to 2022. ($1 = 7.2996 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Kim Coghill)
