The Year Asia Ruled the Box Office

The 2020 global box office is going to be a wild outlier for a lot of reasons, but it does provide a tantalizing glimpse of what the moviegoing world would look like if Hollywood was out of the picture.  Five of the top ten, and twelve of the top twenty-five highest grossers of 2020 came from China.  Topping the charts was war movie "The Eight Hundred" with  $472.5 million, and comedic anthology "My People, My Homeland" with $433.2 million.  The highest grossing Hollywood film was "Bad Boys for Life," which managed third place with $424.5 million.

Here's the full chart:

1. The Eight Hundred - $461.3 (millions)

2. My People, My Homeland - $433.2

3. Bad Boys for Life - $426.5

4. Demon Slayer: Infinity Train - $401.4

5. Tenet - $363.1

6. Sonic the Hedgehog - $319.7

7. Dolittle - $245.5

8. Jiang Ziya - $240.6

9. A Little Red Flower - $238.6

10. Shock Wave 2 - $221.7

The other Chinese films are the animated "Jiang Ziya," teen cancer romance "A Little Red Flower," and an action film, "Shock Wave 2." "Demon Slayer: Infinity Train" is the wildly successful Japanese anime film, which is now the highest grossing film ever released in Japan, after dethroning "Spirited Away."  Compare this to 2019, when there were four Chinese films in the top twenty-five, the highest being the animated film "Nezha," in twelfth place with $742.5 million.  "Jiang Ziya" is its sequel, by the by.

I'm not familiar with the majority of these films, but the first thing you notice is how much more genre diversity there is in the Chinese films.  "The Eight Hundred" and "Shock Wave 2" are action films, and "Jiang Ziya" is an animated spectacular, but you've also got "A Little Red Flower," which is a teen romance more or less the equivalent of "The Fault in Our Stars," and "My People, My Homeland," which is a collection of five feel-good comedic shorts promoting Chinese patriotism for the National Day holiday.  Yeah, China's moviegoing culture has some interesting wrinkles to it, so I should add some caveats here.

   

Keep in mind that China still severely limits how many and what kind of non-Chinese films can be exhibited in China.  The biggest box office dates in China are Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day, and National Day in October, when Hollywood films are often shut out of theaters completely.  A big controversy erupted last year when a US and Chinese co-production, "Monster Hunter," saw its Chinese release cancelled over a joke deemed to be racially insensitive.  The "Demon Slayer" movie had its release in China delayed for similar reasons.  These kinds of protectionist and censorship issues are not unique to China, but they're more stringent about them than most, and they get more press because China now has the world biggest market for theatrical films.

Because the pandemic hit the US so much harder than Asia, the few major Hollywood films that were released in 2020 were more dependent on Chinese and international audiences than ever.  Covid had a significant impact on China, causing a nearly 66% decrease in box office receipts from the previous year, but that was still far better than in the US, where the box office was down 80%. "Tenet" only made 16% of its total gross domestically, and its biggest audience turned out to be China, where it earned $66 million.  However, China definitely benefited from decreased competition.  Foreign films made up 16% of ticket sales in 2020, compared to 36% the year before.   

At the time of writing, at the end of February, Chinese films comprise the entire global top ten box office earners.  A family comedy, "Hi Mom," is at number one, with $663.9 million.  I don't expect it'll stay that way as the COVID quarantines end, and delayed Hollywood blockbuster titles start rolling out at last.  Still, China's audiences continue to grow, and the film industry finally seems to be finding its footing.  I wouldn't be surprised at all if 2020 is a preview of things to come.   

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