A woman walks past film posters at a cinema in Tancheng County, east China’s Shandong Province, Oct. 7, 2024. Photo from Xinhua
China recorded 2.1 billion yuan (about 297 million U.S. dollars) in box office takings for the 2024 National Day holiday, the China Film Administration said Oct. 8.
A total of 52.09 million movie tickets were sold during the holiday. Domestic films raked in 2.02 billion yuan at the box office, accounting for 95.87 percent of the total, the administration said.
Domestic production “The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death” led the charts with a box office revenue of 805 million yuan during the holiday. Directed by Chen Kaige, the film is the second installment in his “The Volunteers” trilogy. The trilogy is set around China’s involvment in the Korean War.
Ticketing agency Maoyan reports that “Volunters 2” now has a cumulative of RMB802 million after seven days and it is now estimating that the film could finish its theatrical run with RMB1.4 billion ($199 million). That would put it in the top ten films this year.
The second and third highest-grossing films on the leaderboard are crime drama “Tiger Wolf Rabbit” and sci-fi offering “Bureau 749,” which grossed over 359 million yuan and 356 million yuan, respectively.
The National Day holiday, which ran from Oct. 1 to 7, is traditionally one of China’s most lucrative moviegoing periods. Most people have seven consecutive days off work during the holiday.
Despite this big haul, the 2.1 billion total was down from last years National Holiday period. The box office fell by 23% from last years 2.7 billion according to Maoyan. Both remain well below the peak of around 4 billion yuan during the same holiday period from 2019 to 2021. However, it is still a significant improvement from 1.5 billion yuan in 2022.
Year-to-date the box office in China this year has now surpassed the $5 billion mark. With major summer movies like Succsessor contributing to the haul. However, the current total of $5.17 billion (RMB36.7 billion) is down more than 22% compared with $6.69 billion (RMB47.5 billion) at the same time last year.
Despite the box office tumble, Maoyan suggests that there are some bright spots. A record-tying five films each grossed over RMB100 million ($14.5 million) for the second consecutive year. Also, the first day of the holiday, exceeded RMB494 million ($70 million). This is the highest single-day box office during the National Day season in the past three years.
If you liked this article why not read: New Film Festival Brings Female-led Chinese Films to Scotland
