China’s film box office revenue rose 5.4% to 64.3 billion yuan ($9.2 billion) in 2019, a slower rate than its 9% growth during the previous year, state news agency Xinhua reported Thursday.
Domestic films garnered 41.2 billion yuan in ticket sales last year, accounting for 64% of the total box office, Xinhua said, citing data from the China Film Administration. In 2018, homegrown productions occupied 62% of the total box office.
The market share expansion of domestic films in 2019 was largely attributed to the screening of several Chinese-made blockbusters including the science-fiction film “The Wandering Earth,” the animation fantasy film “Ne Zha,” and the patriotic hit “My People, My Country,” which was shot to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
In 2019, a total of eight Chinese-made films galloped onto the annual list of the top 10 highest-grossing films in China, with “Ne Zha” raking in a record 5 billion yuan in ticket sales. 47 out of the 88 films hitting the box office mark of 100 million were homegrown movies.
China had 69,787 cinema screens nationwide by the end of 2019, an increase of 9,708 from 2018, and more than 1.7 billion film tickets were sold, a report by Communist Party-run newspaper People’s Daily said.
– This article originally appeared on Caixin Global.
