The filmmakers wear facial masks in a movie theater screening room almost six months after they closed due to the coronavirus pandemic on July 24, 2020 in Beijing, China.
China News Service China News Service Getty Images
In a year marked by a deadly global pandemic, the Japanese box office set a new record.
An animated film based on a popular manga called “Demon Slayer” became the highest grossing film in the country’s history, surpassing Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away” record in 2001. more than $ 322 million in ticket sales.
Japan, an island country in East Asia with a population of more than 126 million, has had less than 300,000 cases of coronavirus and only saw its box office revenue fall 46% in 2020, to 1,272 million dollars.
In comparison, national box offices were ruined by 80%, to $ 2.28 billion, as U.S. coronavirus cases have surpassed $ 21.6 million since the pandemic began. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, Canada, a collaborator of the national box office, has registered less than 645,000 cases.
Japan is just one of many countries in the Asia-Pacific region of the world that had managed to navigate the coronavirus pandemic in such a way that the number of cases has remained low and consumer confidence has remained high.
In places like China, Australia and South Korea, where Covid cases have dropped significantly, analysts and traders see how the box offices are recovering and thriving.
In fact, Asia Pacific increased its market share in 2020. Although the global box office was significantly lower last year, about 70% of what it was in 2019, or about $ 12.4 billion, Asia Pacific represents 51% of ticket sales. In 2019, those countries accounted for 41%, according to Comscore data and Gower Street analytics.
In comparison, in 2019, the US and Canadian box office accounted for 30% of global ticket sales. In 2020, this market share fell to 18%.
Asia Pacific has made great efforts to combat the coronavirus, including suspension of travel, large-scale testing and contact monitoring, the imposition of masks, and the implementation of strict rules of social distancing. Regardless of each country’s approach, its ability to reduce coronavirus cases and reopen its economies demonstrates that if the U.S. is able to do the same, they could achieve similar results.
So far, the response to coronavirus in America has been slow and cases continue to rise to historic levels, with hospitalizations and deaths also on the rise.
Since August, when most of the world’s theaters reopened, Asia Pacific accounted for nearly 78% of the total box office worldwide.
The reason these countries have been able to recover after widespread theater closures is twofold, said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at Comscore.
First, these countries were able to control outbreaks by blocking, establishing contact tracking, and enforcing mask mandates. Decreasing the number of cases and applying strict preventive measures instilled a greater sense of confidence in potential moviegoers.
Second, these countries had to release new films that did not belong to Hollywood. Nationwide, the box office stalled because there was no new product for the public to go see. Even when cinemas reopened with limited capacity, most of the films being screened were inherited titles such as “Star Wars”, “Jaws” and “Goonies”.
In Asia Pacific, the studios had a steady stream of new content to lure people off their couches. And the moviegoers came out in droves.
China generated two films worth more than $ 400 million at the local box office: “The Eight Hundred,” a war drama set in the 1930s, and “My People, My Homeland,” a film ‘humor consisting of five short stories. Both films were released in the second half of the year.
In comparison, the highest grossing film in the United States and Canada in 2020 was Sony’s “Bad Boys for Life”. The action film starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence is the third film in the “Bad Boys” franchise and was released in January, before the virus began to spread in the United States. He earned $ 204 million during his film career.
No nationally released film during the second half of the year was close to $ 100 million.
Universal family animated film “The Croods: A New Age” and Warner Bros. ‘The 1984 Wonder Woman superhero sequel has grossed less than $ 30 million nationally. “Tenet,” another Warner Bros. title, was released on Labor Day weekend and did not exceed $ 60 million during his theatrical career.
“Certainly, the road to a normal big screen market will take a long time and a lot of patience,” Dergarabedian said. “But the lessons learned from the example of countries that have bounced back strongly in recent months show that a well-managed Covid response and engaging new films can provide the spark together to ignite box office prosperity now and in the future. “.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. “The Croods: A New Age” is an NBCUniversal movie.