China’s Box Office Set to Lose Approx. $4 Billion This Year
Theaters are having a rough go of things during this pandemic, just like many other entertainment businesses. Movie theaters have done their best to accommodate to the way that the world currently is and how the pandemic is affecting people. Of course, this means that they are stuck closed for a time, and even when they re-open they must do so with restrictions. China will be able to re-open its theaters nation-wide much sooner than here in the U.S., but they also closed before ours did. With this in mind, they are a guiding post as to how things here will go when we re-open our theaters as well.
When theaters do re-open, they will have restrictions on them for the sake of avoiding a massive public health crisis that can be worse than we already have. With those restrictions, money will, of course, be lost since not every seat will be able to be filled. As such, less people filling seats equals less concessions being sold to the public at large. This, in turn means that theaters will be losing a lot of money, even after they re-open their doors to the public. China, having a lot more people in it, is going to lose a lot more than the stateside counterpart would.
With the Covid-19 virus originating in China, and as a result, 70,000 screens shut down, the theater industry there took a massive hit to the coin purse. Even worse for the industry over there, they were forced to shut down around Chinese New Year. For theaters there, Chinese New Year is an insanely lucrative time of year for theatrical releases and it is when most theaters make their money. As such, that time period is one that usually has many blockbusters slotted to play, but they all had to be put on hold. Release schedules had to be moved around and films had to be postponed which means that theaters in China are now in a massive hole.
In march, some 600-700 theaters re-opened in China, but due to low visitation numbers and amid concerns of the virus possibly spreading again, they shut down after one weekend. There is no telling quite how long theaters will be shut down for and how many people will go when they re-open. Consumer confidence is a huge part of bringing people in, and health and safety concerns is a massive reason that could keep people away from theaters even longer. This is something all theaters have to deal with worldwide and even when they re-open they will still be in trouble. Now, it is estimated that it will result in a $4 billion net loss at the box office in China compared to last years $9 billion profit.