China’s film industry has entered a deep winter amid the communist regime’s draconian COVID-19 lockdowns, with box office attendance in the first half of 2022 down nearly 40 percent year-on-year and no clear sign of recovery.
Despite the summer holiday, which is the peak season for China’s film industry, box office sales have been lackluster due to strict COVID-19 policies. In the first six months of 2022, China’s box offices raked in 17.18 billion yuan (about $2.65 billion), down 37.7 percent year-on-year, and saw 398 million moviegoers, down 41.7 percent year-on-year.
China’s total box office revenue from March to June was only 4.11 billion yuan (about $630 million), less than half that of the same period in 2021 and a 65.6 percent nosedive, with March, April, and May all hitting multi-year lows….