China's cinemas are expected to rake in three billion yuan
(US$400 million) in box office revenue in 2007, as more cinemas
opened and more domestic films were able to compete with imported
blockbusters.
Chinese movie theaters saw 1.2 billion yuan in box office
revenue in the first half of 2007, a figure that does not include
the busy summer season, local media reported on Thursday. China
reported two billion yuan in box office revenue in 2005 and 2.6
billion yuan in 2006.
As more urban Chinese are drawn to the cinema, 100 new cinemas
with more than 700 screens have been opened so far this year, the
Beijing News said.
Since the beginning of this year, many domestic movies have
become box office hits. Curse of the Golden Flower by
Zhang Yimou and two other Chinese films, Confession of
Pain, and Protégé, garnered approximately 400 million
yuan in total.
At the same time, foreign blockbusters like Spiderman
3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End,
Transformers, and Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix also gained popularity among Chinese fans, each
earning more than 100 million yuan.
The competition will turn fiercer later this year, as director
Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, and Jiang Wen's The Sun Also
Rises, both candidates for the Golden Lion Award at this
year's Venice Film Festival, will be screened in late September on
the Chinese mainland.
Feng Xiaogang's Assembly and Hong Kong director Peter
Chan's The Warlords are scheduled for release in
December.
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(Xinhua News Agency August 24, 2007)