Moviegoers wear face masks in a movie theater screening room nearly six months after its closure due to the coronavirus pandemic on July 24, 2020 in Beijing, China.
China News Service | China News Service | Getty Images
In a year marred by a deadly global pandemic, the Japanese cash register 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. It has sold more than $ 322 million in ticket sales.
Japan, an island nation in East Asia with a population of more than 126 million, has had less than 300,000 cases of coronavirus and saw box office revenues drop 46% to $ 1.27 billion in 2020.
In comparison, the domestic box office crumpled 80% to $ 2.28 billion, as the number of coronavirus cases in the US has exceeded 21.6 million since the pandemic began. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, Canada, which is a contributor to the domestic box office, has seen fewer than 645,000 cases.
Japan is just one of many countries in the Asia-Pacific region of the world that have managed to get through 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 business has fallen significantly, analysts and operators are seeing cash registers recover and thrive.
In fact, Asia Pacific saw its market share increase in 2020. While 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 data from Comscore and analysis from Gower Street.
In comparison, in 2019, US and Canadian cash registers accounted for 30% of global ticket sales. In 2020, that market share will have fallen to just 18%.
Asia Pacific has made major efforts to combat the coronavirus, including suspending travel, setting up large-scale testing and contact tracking, mandating masks, and implementing strict social distance rules. Regardless of each country’s approach, their ability to reduce coronavirus cases and reopen their economies shows that if the US is able to do the same, they could see similar results.
So far, the response to the coronavirus in America has been slow and cases continue to rise to historic levels, including hospitalizations and deaths.
Since August, when the majority of theaters worldwide reopened, Asia Pacific has accounted for nearly 78% of the total box office worldwide.
The reason these countries have been able to recover from widespread theater closings is twofold, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
First, these countries were able to get their outbreaks under control by locking, establishing contact tracking, and enforcing mask mandates. Reducing the number of cases and taking strict preventive measures created a greater sense of confidence among potential moviegoers.
Second, these countries had new, non-Hollywood movies to release. In their own country, the till stopped because there was no new product for the public to look at. Even when cinemas with limited capacity reopened, most of the films shown were old titles like “Star Wars”, “Jaws” and “Goonies”.
In Asia-Pacific, studios had a steady stream of new content to lure people away from their couches. And cinema visitors came in droves.
China had two movies that fetched over $ 400 million at the local box office: “The Eight Hundred,” a war drama set in the 1930s, and “My People, My Homeland,” a comedy film consisting of five short stories . Both films were released in the second half of the year.
In comparison, the top-grossing movie in the US and Canada in 2020 was Sony’s “Bad Boys for Life.” The action movie starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence is the third movie in the “Bad Boys” franchise and was released in January, before the virus spread in the US. It grossed $ 204 million during its screening in theaters.
No film released domestically in the second half of the year came close to grossing $ 100 million.
Universal’s animated family movie “The Croods: A New Age” and Warner Bros. superhero sequels “Wonder Woman 1984” have both grossed less than $ 30 million domestically. “Tenet,” another title from Warner Bros., was released on Labor Day weekend and has not exceeded $ 60 million during its theatrical run.
“Going back to a normal large-screen marketplace will no doubt take a lot of time and patience,” said Dergarabedian. But the lessons learned from the example of countries that have made a strong return in recent months show that a well-managed Covid response and compelling new films together can spark the spark to bring prosperity to the box office now and in the future. stir up. “
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. The Croods: A New Age is an NBCUniversal movie.