Box office revenue of the most successful movies of all time in China 2022
As of the end of May 2022, "The Battle at Lake Changjin" was the highest-grossing movie of all time in China. The three-hour Chinese blockbuster was also the most expensive film ever made to date in the country. Avengers: Endgame (2019) was the only foreign film in the top ten ranking. The Marvel superhero film generated a total box office revenue of over 4.2 billion yuan in China. In recent years, China has invested a great deal of its resources in film making and distribution. Some of the Asian giant’s most expensive productions were Monster Hunt 2 (2018) and Asura (2018) that figured over a hundred million U.S. dollars each.
China’s homemade blockbusters
China remains a significant share in global's cinema market. Similar to other leading cinema markets in the world, China’s film industry primarily produces feature films. As of 2021, a few of the highest grossing Chinese feature films included Ne Zha (2019), The Wandering Earth (2019), The Eight Hundred (2020), and My People, My Homeland' (2020). Having grossed about 4.7 billion yuan as box office revenue, The Wandering Earth received much critical acclaim as one of China’s most stunning sci-fi productions. Critics lauded it as China’s answer to Hollywood productions such as Interstellar and Gravity.
Foreign film market in China
Foreign films often face a strict censorship by the Chinese authority. Hollywood productions, like Avatar, Deadpool, The Da Vinci Code, were banned because of sensitive topics or conveying ideologies contradictory to traditional Chinese values. Although more overseas filmmakers are trying to avoid content considered unfavorable by the Chinese government, the market share of imported movies in terms of movie screenings has remained below 30 percent since 2015. As for box office revenues, foreign enterprises made up for about 36 percent of the total revenue in 2019. That year, four Hollywood movies achieved about one billion yuan in box office revenue in the Chinese market.
