Modern Chinese Cinema: Box Office Boom in Full Swing

Abstract

According to the Hollywood media, three blockbuster films passed the billion-dollar mark worldwide in the summer of 2011: Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Hollywood film producers are enormously relieved that the domestic entertainment business has finally shaken off the shadow of the financial crisis, and that remarkable achievements have been made in markets outside North America. The box office receipts for Transformers 3 in China reached 150 million dollars, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 reached 70 million dollars, and Deathly Hallows: Part 2 reached 60 million dollars. The latest statistics show that China's summer box office sales (June–August) surged 80 percent to 4.2 billion yuan (650 million dollars) in 2011, whereas it took in only 1.9 billion yuan (280 million dollars) in the same period of 2010; the increase reflects China's seemingly insatiable appetite for film.