China Re-Opens 500+ Cinemas As Coronavirus Cases Ease
Mike Sprague
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Finally, some good news on the movie-going front. Today, Deadline reports that as new cases of the coronavirus slow in China, cinemas are re-opening this weekend. So that’s a good thing.
On Friday, 486 movie theaters went back to work, while Saturday the total was upped to 507. These are small steps to get China back up and running but at least it’s something positive.
The expectation for China is that theaters will continue to come back online through the end of this month and into April with the overall theatrical re-opening happening in waves.
That said … according to a recent survey, most people don’t have what you might call “immediate plans” to head back to the cinema, citing as you might imagine, fear of crowds and leaving home.
For the record, the biggest collection of movie-goers this past weekend was in Xinjiang. The other provinces include Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Qinghai, Henan, Fujian, and Guangdong.
The re-opens are expected to boast popular re-releases of older titles to hopefully bring back customers. Chinese exhibitors will keep 100% of the box office on these re-release titles. So this may be the route theaters here in the U.S. take when the time comes? We’ll have to wait and see.
There were 39 new COVID-19 cases reported in China on Sunday. The total number of confirmed cases is 81,093 with 3,270 deaths. Are you glad to hear theaters in China are re-opening? Let us know what you think in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!
Categorized:News
