China surpasses North America in box office collection for the first time

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Blame it on the Covid-19 pandemic but North America’s box office collection tanked around 80 percent to an estimated $2.3 billion, making way for China to grab the world’s-biggest-box-office-market crown for the first time in 2020. China made an estimated $2.7 billion in ticket sales in 2020, according to Hollywood Reporter.

North America’s domestic ticket sales fell from $11.4 billion in 2019 to $2.3 billion in 2020, the lowest in four decades. The decline of North American movie market isn’t surprising though, given the extensive theater closures from March through December, 2020 in the United States.

Globally, ticket sales declined by around 70 percent. China too saw its domestic ticket sales going down by 70 percent year over year, falling from around $9 billion in 2019 to an estimated $2.7 billion in 2020. Yet, China could manage to rebound faster than North America, mainly during the last quarter of 2020.

China also made the world’s highest grossing film of 2020 called The Eight Hundred, which made over $460 million. In comparison, Hollywood's biggest global hit Bad Boys for Life made $426.5 million. Many other Chinese movies, for instance, My Homeland, and My People became a global hit in 2020.

It seems that China is all set to keep the momentum going in 2021 too. China’s New Year Day box office collection reached $92 million, beating all of its earlier New Year Day collection records, Deadline reported. Most of its January 1 revenues came from a new release called A Little Red Flower, which tells the story of how the average person should overcome the fear of death with love and cherish.

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