(Global Times) While the Chinese mainland film market's performance over the past few years has set it on track to become the world's largest within a few years, the market has stumbled a bit last year.
With a total box-office revenue of 45.71 billion yuan ($6.58 billion), the mainland film market for 2016 finally surpassed 2015's 44.07 billion yuan box office right before the end of the year, according to data from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. However, while 2016 beat out the previous year when it came to total box office, the year lost out when it came to growth: although the market grew by 48.7 percent in 2015, this year's growth was a meager 3.73 percent.
This was the second time in the 21st century that Chinese film market growth fell below 10 percent. The first time was in 2001, when year-on-year growth reached only 3.49 percent.
While the beginning of 2016 saw rapid box-office growth, fatigue settled in after April. During the entire year, except for January, February, March, June and August, seven of the 12 months in 2016 saw year-on-year decreases in box office.
A total of 913 films were released in the Chinese mainland in 2016, including 92 imported works, three more than released in 2015. These 92 imported films brought in a total of 19.05 billion yuan, accounting for 41.67 percent of total box-office returns.
Nine of the 900 or so works released in 2016 earned more than 1 billion yuan each, while 84 films made more than 100 million yuan each. Six of the films that earned more than 1 billion yuan each were either domestic or co-produced films.
The highest-earning domestic made film was Stephen Chow's fantasy comedy The Mermaid (3.39 billion yuan), followed by The Monkey King 2 (1.20 billion yuan) and Operation Mekong (1.18 billion yuan), while the highest earning imported film was Disney's animated film Zootopia (1.53 billion yuan), followed by Warcraft (1.47 billion) and Captain America: Civil War (1.25 billion).
However, while these films made money, they didn't necessarily earn a high reputation among audiences. Among the highest grossing films of the year, a number of them, especially domestic films, received low scores from audiences.
On the other hand, a few lesser-earning films outperformed blockbusters when it came to review.
A report from Chinese movie site Mtime shows that the top three domestic films of 2016 with the best audience scores on the site were This is Life (8.3), Mr. Monkey (7.6) and Operation Mekong (7.6). The first two films were both medium-budget productions directed by little-known filmmakers.
Although big blockbusters are the major box office contributors to the Chinese film market, low audience scores suggest domestic audiences hold them to a high standard.
The critical success of some smaller-budget films with lesser-known directors is a sign that audience tastes are becoming more diversified and are no longer being blinded by big names.
The number of screens in the mainland grew by 9,552 to reach 41,179 screens.
According to an analysis from Maoyan, a domestic film data analysis website, audiences from fourth-tier cities are becoming increasingly more important. They accounted for 24 percent of audiences in the mainland, up from 2015's 18 percent, while audiences from first- and second-tier cities decreased from 64 percent to 56 percent.
While the increase in screens may seem like a boon, according to Maoyan single-screen and single-cinema revenue decreased 23 percent and 17 percent respectively over 2015, while 70 percent of the nationwide cinema chains showed below-average performance.
Source: Global Times By Wei Xi