China’s box office had a terrible 2024

By Juliana Liu, CNN

Hong Kong (CNN) — An economic downturn is supposed to drive spending on small luxuries like going out to the movies. But the world’s second-largest economy, currently mired in a slump, is challenging that long-held theory.

Last year, China’s box office receipts plummeted by 23%, compared to 2023, to just 42.5 billion yuan ($5.8 billion), according to China Film News, an official newspaper under the China Film Administration, citing official numbers released by the group on Wednesday. The takings were 34% lower than in 2019, a record year for the movie industry before a slew of pandemic and economic challenges emerged.

The top box office draw last year was “Yolo,” a feminist film starring and directed by Jia Ling, who plays a 30-something woman who loses weight and gains confidence by taking up boxing. The feel-good comedy, in which Jia lost 100 pounds over the course of filming, sold 3.5 billion yuan ($474 million) worth of tickets, according to Maoyan.

“Comedy is still the most preferred type of movie for audiences and contributed 36% of the annual box office,” Liu Zhenfei, a data analyst at Lighthouse Research Institute, a market research firm, was quoted by the official Economic Information Daily newspaper on Thursday as saying.

But, of course, the overall box office was soft. The annual decline was in part because fewer films were produced. According to official data, just 612 films were made in 2024, compared to 792 the year before.

China isn’t the only country seeing a decline in the number of films made. According to ProdPro, which tracks production data, the number of projects actively filming fell by 17% globally in July to September 2024, compared to the same period in 2022, as the industry continues to reel from the impact of 2023’s disruptive Hollywood strikes.

The trend is believed to have contributed to America’s box office declining by 3% last year, compared to 2023, to $8.72 billion, according to calculations by Deadline.

China’s industry downturn was a surprise to experts, as movie theaters did well in 2023. They were a rare bright spot in China’s economy, which had lost momentum after an initial rebound when consumers emerged from three years of draconian Covid-19 curbs.

Box office revenues on Christmas Eve – which is not a public holiday in China – fell to their lowest in at least 13 years, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing data from Maoyan. The takings were 38 million yuan ($5.2 million), less than a quarter of last year’s and the lowest since Maoyan began keeping records in 2011.

Weak spending

History shows that cinemas tend to thrive during tough economic times, experts say, as they offer escapism for a relatively modest price. In fact, it’s even part of a phenomenon referred to as the “lipstick effect,” when consumers spend on small pick-me-ups during times of uncertainty.

And while economic sentiment has improved in the months since leader Xi Jinping decided to go ahead with a much-needed stimulus package in September, consumption is still weak.

“Weighed on by the prolonged property downturn and weak consumer confidence, Chinese household consumption slowed in 2024, with Tier-1 cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen), where wealth losses from falling property prices are more significant, underperforming smaller ones,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a esearch note published Tuesday.

Besides weak spending, China is suffering from a property crisis, debt problems and high youth unemployment, among other woes. So far, officials haven’t introduced major stimulus measures that involve putting money directly into the hands of consumers, but they have begun so-called “cash-for-clunkers” programs that have boosted sales for passenger cars and home appliances.

Last month, the China Film Administration introduced a subsidy program to help the ailing box office. According to the official Xinhua news agency, a number of banks and online booking platforms will jointly spend 600 million yuan ($82 million) on offering discounted tickets and lucky draw competitions to boost the number of moviegoers in the new year.

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