China Box Office Surges by Annual 83% in 2023 to $7.73 Billion
variety.comPatrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chinese-produced movies took all of the top ten chart places at the China box office as theatrical revenues in 2023 rebounded strongly.
Gross revenues reached an annual total of RMB54.9 billion or $7.73 billion. That was an 83% improvement on the previous year, according to data from China Film Administration, but still 14.5% adrift of 2019, the last pre-COVID year, when grosses hit RMB64.3 billion.
The government body also said that 2023 was the fourth highest box office figure on record. Comparisons with 2022 are less meaningful than in many other countries as China suffered the worst of the pandemic in that year and cinemas were subject to eight months of rolling closures and capacity restrictions.
In 2020 and 2021, when much of the world was laboring under COVID restrictions, but China was operating largely normally, the Middle Kingdom was the biggest movie market on the planet.
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