Fans watch a movie at a cinema in Shanghai.
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Women are fueling China’s box office despite making up a smaller share of the population — and Hollywood should take note.
While women account for lower than half the Chinese population, they represent 52% of monthly moviegoers, in response to Morning Seek the advice of, which surveyed 681 monthly moviegoers between July 21 and July 25.
The upper-than-expected box office spending by Chinese women not only shows a cultural shift, but in addition a recent entry point for American studios. Hollywood has struggled to regain its foothold in the country after Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns, as China developed its domestic film industry and limited the variety of foreign movies allowed in theaters. Tapping into this recent trend of female moviegoers in China may very well be a recent strategy for Hollywood.
Morning Seek the advice of determined that female audiences in China are interested in science fiction and motion movies, on par with their male counterparts, but over index in interest in romantic comedies and musicals.
“Which I feel speaks to why ‘Barbie’ recently was in a position to take off in that country, prefer it did in many other places,” said Kevin Tran, senior media and entertainment analyst at Morning Seek the advice of.
While Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” has collected only about $35 million up to now in China, Tran suggests studios could look to capitalize on a demographic that’s being underserved in the marketplace.
“Purchasing power of girls in China has been increasing for several years,” Tran explained. “Fewer women are getting married. So there’s, I feel there’s just more independence, and I feel that with China still being a rustic that has prioritized traditional gender roles … there’s more time available for leisure and things besides domestic or house care kind of responsibilities. … In order that they’re in a position to do other things, like go to the movies, or simply spend money on themselves in a way that they may not have been in a position to previously.”
Morning Seek the advice of noted that its survey indicated that 32% of Chinese women reported going to the movies three or more times in the month of July, compared with 27% of men.
“Given the difficulty nonlocal studios face in nailing down specific cultural norms and popular culture references in China, it could make sense for U.S. studios to more heavily invest in Chinese productions of musicals and romantic comedies as a longer-term strategy,” Tran wrote in his report. “These investments can be one approach to make sure that studios’ slates are balanced with genres beyond the typical big-budget motion blockbusters they’ve traditionally relied upon for global box office success.”
Tran said that Hollywood shouldn’t completely rewrite it’s playbook to cater to at least one country’s cinematic inclinations. In spite of everything, American audiences have rebuked studios for altering and even cutting scenes from movies to cater to Chinese censorship rules.
To be distributed and screened in China, movies should be approved by regulators and may very well be censored in the event that they contain content that officials deem violates its core socialist values or detracts from its nationalistic image.
Several major blockbusters, including Marvel’s “Black Widow,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” “Thor: Love and Thunder,” “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and Sony’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” were barred from Chinese theaters.
Before the pandemic, Chinese audiences were consistently liable for between 15% and 20% of world hauls for giant blockbusters, especially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For the most recently released Marvel film, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” ticket sales from China accounted for just 10% of the film’s total haul.
As movie theaters reopened in the wake of the pandemic, Hollywood has been quick to supply up superhero and motion movies to Chinese audiences to middling success. While Disney’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” snared greater than $200 million during its theatrical run in the country, few others have come near that figure, and even crossed the $100 million mark.
China resumed importing Hollywood movies at pre-pandemic levels this 12 months, but ticket sales during the first half of 2023 are down nearly 70% from the same period in 2019, in response to film industry advisory group Artisan Gateway.