Avatar: The Manner of Water is likely one of the few overseas movies to get entry to the Chinese language market in current months.
The long-awaited sequel to director James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar will likely be launched in mainland Chinese language cinemas on December 16, twentieth Century Studios has mentioned.
Avatar: The Manner of Water will likely be launched in China on the identical day as its international launch, the studio mentioned on its official Weibo account on Wednesday.
It turns into one of many few overseas movies to get entry to the Chinese language market in current months, with others together with the most recent movie within the Minions franchise and Sony Footage’ The place the Crawdads Sing.
International films have lengthy struggled to achieve launch dates in mainland China on account of strict quotas on the variety of worldwide movies allowed to indicate and lots of are blocked on account of content material Chinese language regulators deem unseemly.
Hollywood blockbusters not too long ago have had a very exhausting time getting clearance to indicate in China. The six newest Marvel films didn’t make an look in China and earlier this yr, Black Panther: Wakanda Without end was additionally denied a China launch.
Elevated scrutiny of Hollywood movies has occurred together with an increase in China’s movie studios making their very own variations of the high-octane blockbusters US studios are identified for.
Chinese language-made hits embrace the Wolf Warrior franchise and final yr’s breakout success, The Battle at Changjin Lake, has confirmed widespread with Chinese language audiences eager to see extra Chinese language-centric tales on the large display.
That mentioned, since Chinese language film ticket gross sales topped US ticket gross sales for the primary time in 2020, the Chinese language film market has been hit by tight COVID-19 curbs. Cinemas throughout the nation are incessantly requested to droop operations or cap viewers numbers.
Particularly as instances proceed to develop, individuals in lots of cities across the nation are refraining from going to cinemas.
China’s whole field workplace take for this yr has reached solely 28.27 billion Chinese language yuan ($4bn) in accordance with Chinese language cinema information app Dengta. It’s a sharp fall from 2019’s 64.15 billion yuan ($8.9bn) and even final yr’s 47.04bn ($6.5bn)