The latest Avengers film has become China’s highest-grossing foreign movie, but it is not all down to the global appeal of the Hollywood franchise.
After a decade of rapid expansion in China’s movie market, local film producers are facing a funding crunch. A government crackdown on tax evasion, a squeeze on the shadow banking sector and a pullback in consumer spending have hit new projects. The movies in the latest week’s box office top five in China were all foreign.
At Beijing’s annual film festival last month, the atmosphere was gloomy. “The era of barbaric growth has ended,” said Lin Zhan, chair of a committee that organised the event.