What’s Next At The Chinese Box Office As Covid & Politics Prove An Unpredictable Mix

deadline.com:

Reading the tea leaves with regard to China in 2023 is even more difficult than usual. The country’s about-face on its longstanding zero-Covid policy has implications from geopolitics to economics and, closer to home for Hollywood, the state of the market after a dismal 2022.

Exactly what those implications are is where the guesswork comes in. On the one hand, the loosening of restrictions already seems to have led to more tickets being sold in local cinemas.

On the other, the sudden reemergence of a massive population with little natural or vaccine-derived protection will likely provide kindling for a wildfire of infection and emerging variants unseen since the very beginning of the pandemic.

The Chinese box office was down an estimated 36% last year, reaching $4.35 billion with only two local titles in the global Top 10, versus three the previous year which were in much higher slots.