This has already been a difficult year at the box office (make a handful of years) about to become even more difficult. As we recently reported, the prices of American President Donald Trump China to consider a break on allowing all Hollywood films to play in the country. Recently, Trump has put a 90 -day grip on his prices in a large part of the world, with the exclusion of China. Instead, he raised the prices again on the country, degenerating the trade war between two of the world’s largest economies. Now, this trade war is officially arriving for Hollywood.
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According to a new report of BloombergChinese regulators will officially reduce the number of American films authorized in the country in response to the prices imposed by Trump. It remains to be seen how serious the reduction will be, but China has already favored local titles recently, including this year “Ne Zha 2” (which made more than $ 2 billion in the sale of Chinese tickets). China Film Administration had this to say about it in a press release:
“The bad action of the American government to abuse China prices will inevitably further reduce the favorability of the national public towards American films. We will follow market rules, respect the public choice and moderately reduce the number of imported American films. China is the second market in the world film. We have always joined a high level of market demand.”
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While Hollywood films have made much less in China since the pandemic, it remains the second largest film market in the world. In addition, some films are still very well there. “Avatar: The Way of Water” won $ 2.3 billion worldwide, with a huge $ 246 million in this total from China. With Disney who published “Avatar: Fire and Ash” by James Cameron in December, the potential impact of this new policy is highlighted.
The box office will suffer in the short term, but what about long-term impact?
In total, American imports have won around $ 950 million in China during the 2023 calendar year. It is only a small fraction of the country’s overall market now, but Hollywood needs each dollar that he can obtain. “The Water of Water” would have always been a film of $ 2 billion even without China. But something like 2021 “Godzilla against Kong” made $ 188.7 million in its world total of $ 467.8 million in China. This film was straight saved by these ticket sales.
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Certainly, in most cases, Theaters keep about half of the box office moneyWhile studios see only about 25% of this money from China (due to international taxes and other factors). However, 25% of $ 188 million is still a lot money, while 25% of $ 950 million a lot money. This is the biggest point here. Many money studios could really use right now will evaporate.
The other issue, as the CFA pointed out, is that Chinese moviegoers may not be also inclined to support American films at the moment, given the current trade war. Thus, even if a film like “Mission: Impossible – the last calculation” can secure a theatrical outing in China, it can be even more difficult to fight than it has been recently.
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For years now, beware, Hollywood could not depend on the Chinese box office as before. That is to say that the major studios could not depend on robust brushes in the country even before this mess. But there is a big difference between not being able to depend on it and completely wipe this money. This is what we are currently looking at, and at a time when the box office is more volatile than ever, the industry as a whole can badly display such setbacks. And yet we are there. We can only hope that it is simply a short -term problem and that there are no long -term ramifications for the relationship between Hollywood and China, although it seems to be a distinct possibility.
