How China Rescued Its Theaters, And What The United States Can Learn From It
It has been nearly nine months since July 20 that Chinese cinemas have reopened. According to data from Comscore, between January 1 and March 21, China’s box office has tallied $2.64 billion in ticket sales, the most of any territory. China’s theater film market exhibits a strong resilience, and this resilience comes from its special economic model, population, and the country’s circumstances, which involves the government’s strong and efficient control over people and organization as well as the way that collectivism shapes people's behavioral patterns. This recovery of theaters resulted in a mix of these factors, which made the pattern of Chinese Theaters’ reopening difficult to be replicated by other countries. Even so, China and the United States share some common characteristics in the business model of the theater chain, the blockbuster’s dominancy format, and audience preferences for the content. In the following article, I will analyze the exclusive advantages of the Chinese film market during the pandemic and how can theaters in the United States utilize similar and relevant strategies that are adopted by the Chinese film and television industry during the pandemic.
International Week 13 Box Office Totals
Following social distancing regulations during the pandemic, theaters bore a higher cost of reopening than they would have when they shut down. Except for the contribution of newly-released blockbusters to draw audiences back to theaters, whether films' qualities can achieve audience expectations was also taken into account when it comes to the movie release schedule. Will the audience be willing to pay for movies of lower quality due to their longing to go back to the theater? How would you schedule a medium-budget movie in today’s industry? Due to the excessive number of backlog movies caused by the pandemic, theaters that reopened would suffer from a lack of movies to release, but this wouldn’t be their most significant problem. The main problem that troubles the theaters was how to schedule to release these films. At the beginning of the theater reopening, China adopted the strategy of postponing their summer releases to cushion the audience's pressure of going back to the theaters from the coronavirus lockdown. As a result, films that were supposed to be released during the summer vacation have been delayed to release during the National Day and Lunar New Year vacation. This strategy is also applied in the theater market in the United States. In summer 2020, when Christopher Nolan's Tenet took the lead to premiere in some states in the United States, it lost a large audience due to the prolonged closure of theaters in NYC and LA, the two biggest American movie markets. So, after LA and NYC theaters reopened, Tenet was released again in March. The strategy to extend and even repeat the release of critic-acclaimed new films has helped to recover the box office loss in New York State and California. Correspondingly, the re-release of classic old films also provokes the audience's enthusiasm to go back to the theater.
The first consideration for Chinese theaters in the early stage of the resumption of work is how to survive the first two months. In addition to increasing income and reducing expenditure, government support is also the main measure. China's macro-control has allowed the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television to support the theater and film industries. The SAR corresponding to the relevant US government agency is MPAA. However, in the United States, although the MPAA has the same functions as the SAR and an additional rating system to replace the censorship system, it cannot directly support theater chains such as AMC and Regal. In October 2020, the MPAA and the National Association of Theatre Owners called for federal government aid for theaters. Two months later, on December 20, live venues and theaters received 15 billion aid. Also, starting on April 8, a $16 billion federal relief fund for live-event businesses like music clubs, theaters, museums, and concert promoters will be issued, according to the Small Business Administration.
Relative adjustments have also been made to the schedule of films in the Chinese market compared to before the pandemic. The chain reaction caused by the failure of American theaters to reopen, including the failure of major studios to successfully prepare new films and complete post-production, resulted in the failure of the blue and yellow, and the inability to form a closed loop with the expected film. The absence of Hollywood blockbusters has also led to the need for the Chinese film market to rebuild a relatively independent and self-consistent ecosystem before the global theater reopens. As a result, Chinese domestic films have become the mainstream of the Chinese film market. This has also led to the need for Chinese traffic-led film creation in the past few years, that is, the investment model that takes fan effect and traffic stars as the main considerations regardless of creativity and content. After the reopening of the theater a passive reshuffle has started, one of the signals of which is the departure of many film company executives. Although this will not shake the influence of giant companies in the industry, it does mean that pandemic has accelerated the reshuffle of the helmsman in the film and television industry to adapt to a sustainable business model. This opportunity to rest and think is precisely the reason for the closure of the film and television industry caused by the pandemic. From this perspective, the problems faced by the United States are not as severe as those in China.
While Hollywood’s existence creates blockbusters, there are companies of the same type as Weinstein focusing on awards seasons, investing in content and form with more sincerity and depth. These films create a brand effect. The diversification of movie presentations in theaters is the foundation for theaters to continue to attract audiences and to find a balance between business and art. But even so, streaming has had a strong impact on theaters, especially after Warner Media announced that HBO Max will show all movies that will be shown in theaters in fiscal 2021. The Blockbuster is facing a transformation. Why would theaters with low interactivity attract audiences while the quality of streaming media improves every day? Although for the United States, film investment is not mainly a traffic-driven issue, the homogenization of streaming media and cinema experience also puts forward requirements for the format and content of subsequent American films. If these films are not supported by Imax and Dolby, what? Attract the audience to the theater? This requires communication between the studio and the theater and discussion of common interests.
One of the biggest differences between the American and Chinese film markets is that Chinese films have not been able to establish a stable output creative mode in the past 20 years, while the United States has a complete creative system, but the robustness of this system compromises its flexibility. This means it has lower correctability than the younger, more immature system. Once the system has problems, it will touch the foundation of the entertainment industry, such as the closure of theaters caused by the pandemic, and the trauma the industry has suffered will disrupt its overall structure. However, compared with China, the biggest advantage of the United States in terms of content output is its population base. As a big consumer of film and television, China has an overwhelming advantage in box office numbers compared to other countries. The reason is largely based on the population base. The capital market has a high tolerance for content, while the US population base does not allow for shoddy and muddled content. Due to its large population base, China has shown a large box office advantage after the film industry has recovered. However, the immaturity of its film industry has led to the optimization of its industrial structure, which provides the Chinese film market more room to grow, leading to the improvement of the overall content. Filmmaking tends to address budget and the scale less with a more refined production, with the audience becoming pickier about the content. Those previous cases that achieved box office success with traffic-driven content before the pandemic may become box office fiascos after the pandemic when the population base and the audience’s requirements for content become higher and countervail each other. In the US, a more mature film production system has grown to produce a high level of content, which, along with its lack of flexibility and relatively small population, is both an advantage and disadvantage to the film industry.
Another policy prerequisite for the revival of Chinese theaters is the relaxation of film subject matter and encouragement of production, but this is closely related to China's film censorship. The absolute disadvantage of film censorship lies in the lack of freedom and variety of films, which is the genuine reason why the films released in China's theaters are not attractive to audiences with higher artistic expectations. the American motion picture rating system does not have as strict restrictions on the content and genre, providing more freedom with the cause that certain movies will only reach out to limit audiences, such as the well-known but niche film The Exorcist (however, last March during the pandemic, The Exorcist was re-released on AMC Empire 25). This results in the United States not having much room for improvement in encouraging unique themes and genres. However, by cooperating with streaming platforms and by releasing smaller, more niche films or high-quality streaming content in select theaters that expand the variety of cinema, the industry could attract audiences back. In any case, they’re going to have to do more than hope for a return to normalcy.
