Why can Hollywood no longer depend on China for its cinema?

The COVVI-19 pandemic has been stopped at the stop. Started in China and quickly propagated to the rest of the world, it caused an international crisis as we had never known until then. At least, of this nature. Exchanges between suspended countries, whole sections of the economy at the end, populations confined in a sometimes draconian way … The world has froze to resume only very gradually an almost normal course. But who has never found his state before the pandemic.

An industry that flickering dangerously on its foundations

The cinema industry, more than a hundred years old, which has never stopped even at the worst hours in history, has largely fogged with its foundations. In the United States (as in the rest of the world), all the rooms of rooms have closed their doors for months, not to mention the multiple reports of film releases, even though the rooms played their survival.

In 2022, The Cineworld chain has declared bankruptcywhile the AMC group's room network, the largest in the world, was sealed by a debt of several billion dollars. In July 2024, She still announced a restructuring of part of her debtwhich amounted to $ 4.5 billion. This means that the effects of the crisis continue to play extensions.

A changed media and economic landscape

And even when the rooms were able to reopen, thanks to courageous outings of films like Tenet or the new mutants of Marvel, the media landscape was actually deeply upset; For the benefit of streaming platforms like Netflix, quickly followed at the end of 2020 by a battalion of competitors with Disney+launches, Apple+TV, HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock …

Not only did the majors bet big on these launches in the face of such a brutal change in the consumption habits of spectators, but they do not hesitate (or no longer) now to sacrifice a film barely released indoors to have it landed in VOD on their respective platforms if it does not performeter quickly.

Or even directly by VOD without going through the dark room box. And the figures are ruthless: when Universal has released its film Les Trolls 2 directly: world tour rather than room, He reported more money in three weeks than the first film in five months of indoor operations… In the country of Big Business, the dollar is king.

A small formal office

A year before the pandemic, the American box office could boast of stressful results. The volume of tickets sold represented $ 42 billion. A blessed year of the gods for the Disney firm too, which alone picked up more than $ 13 billion thanks in particular to nine films each exceeding one billion in revenues.

After a pandemic followed by a very hard strike of several months launched by the WGA – SAG unions in 2023, the US Box Office was a hangover. From $ 9 billion in revenue in 2023, he posted half a billion less the following year. And 2025? The figures are obviously not final since we are barely half the year, but according to estimates, overall revenues should be lower than those of 2024 …

The Chinese market, a land more really promised

In this painful paradigm change, there is also another element to take into consideration. For years, Hollywood saw the Chinese market as a new Eldorado. A promised land for its blockbusters always more expensive to produce and amortize. Economically, it made sense. After all, China exceeded the United States in 2015 On the sales volume of tickets for cinemas.

In this well understood economic interest, the majors have largely thrown themselves into the battle, trying to try to penetrate the market of the Empire in the middle with works falling under the quotas of drastic outings imposed on Western films by the Beijing authorities. But also accessing the government's desidtas without censorship without blinking, turning specific scenes to the address of the Chinese public as in Iron Man 3; Multiplying Sino-American co-productions like the film in troubled waters allowing studios to pass the margin of their profits from 25 to 45%…

A much more nationalist approach

However, long before the pandemic put a huge stop, the lights were not exactly reassuring. “There was an important change in politics [du pays]which now targets a more nationalist approach “ already let go in 2017 Jeffrey Katzenberg, former CEO and founder of DreamWorks Animation, who had initially contributed to installing a branch of this studio in China. Rather lucid words.

In 2017, it is a 100% Chinese action film, Wolf Warrior 2, in which the hero brought the dust to mercenaries in Africa, which crushed everything in its path, even becoming the biggest success of all time in China at the time with $ 800 million on the counter; Where Star Wars: The Last Jedi, freshly imported from the USA, only picked up $ 42 million. Admittedly, the Chinese public discovered the Star Wars universe late, in addition to being probably too codified for him. Nevertheless.

The pandemic largely accentuated in China this will of Xi Jinping, the head of state, to favor this nationalist approach to film production; To the detriment obviously of imported productions, to the great despair of Hollywood.

The absolutely incredible and crushing success of the Chinese animated film has only strengthened the Chinese government in its strategic vision. Released at the end of January 2025 in China, the film reported more than $ 2.2 billion. In March, he was the sixth most profitable film Imax of all time worldwide.

Beijing Enlight Media & Trinity Cineasia

“Hollywood has constantly evaluated the market …”

In an exciting and long post entitled Hollywood has a new china problem published on the site Foreign Policyhis authors, Lizzi C. Lee and Mengyuan Li, delivered this rather impactful analysis:

“It is easy for Hollywood to reject the success of NE ZHA 2 as the result of nationalism or the intervention of the state. The harsh truth is that the Chinese public, far from being a passive consumer only influenced by propaganda or by restricted choices, makes active and sophisticated decisions as to what it is watching. And most often, they prefer national films to classic Hollywood imports.

It is true that the Chinese public evolves in a strongly controlled environment – the number and type of Hollywood films that it can see are dictated by government quotas. But even taking into account these constraints, Hollywood has constantly misused the market, assuming that the making of films based on formulas and algorithms, with the support of the State, would be enough to ensure the success of the company.

Beijing Enlight Media & Trinity Cineasia

They complete their tickets on these words: “The lesson to be drawn from NE ZHA 2 is not that Hollywood should start to produce Chinese superproductions. It is that Hollywood must abandon the idea that its narration formula is the default formula worldwide.

If the studios continue to approach China as a reflection afterwards rather than as an equal and unique cultural force, they will find themselves less and less relevant on a market which was once at the heart of their global strategy “.

80% of the income from Chinese cinemas are now generated by Chinese productions

The time (barely 2018!) When China alone reported $ 269 million out of $ 856 million collected at the world box office for Venom is a distant memory. To locate, his suite, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, released in 2021 in the world, has never set the Chinese soil. As a result of which it only recorded “$ 506.8 million in revenue. The difference is violent …

The figures below, released by Bloomberg (via Box Office Mojo) in August 2024, are more than talking. We note, for example, that Fast X, 10th opus, therefore of the billionaire universal franchise carried by Vin Diesel, only picked up $ 139.5 million. Quite significantly less well than the previous opus, which still gleaned $ 216 million.

And very far from the scores of Fast & Furious 8, which had harvested more than $ 392 million on Chinese soil. 80% of the income from Chinese cinemas are now generated by Chinese productions. We will not go so far as to say that there are only crumbs to competition, but not far …

“I heard very worse things …”

In this charged economic context, we understand better the general panic that took Hollywood last April. In response to the hardening of customs duties announced by Donald Trump, China retaliated and wanted to reduce the importation of Hollywood films on its market. On average, 10% of the revenues from an American film come from the Chinese market.

“The erroneous practice of the American government consisting in imposing excessive customs duties on China is likely to harm more on the positive perception of American films by the Chinese public. We will respect market principles, respect public choices and moderately reduce the volume of imports of American films” commented the authorities of Beijing, in a press release relayed by the Hollywood Reporter.

Zuma Press/Bestimage

“I heard things worse” released in the process the current tenant of the White House, whose remarks were reported by Deadline. If Hollywood pretends not to believe in the customs duties imposed by Trump on foreign films broadcast in the United States,-a measure which in fact aimed at China-the industry still remains worried.

Hollywood generated 279 billion dollars in turnover in 2022, and represents 2.3 million jobs, according to the latest figures from the US interprofessional association Mpa. But this cinema industry is in crisis, between historic strikes that paralyzed Hollywood for several months in 2023, the upheavals linked to streaming, and the effects of a post Covid crisis still far from being sold.

Last May Variety Reported that production in the United States has dropped 40 % since the last mobilization. A war of wear and nerves engaged in Hollywood. For how long?