'Chinese film industry rakes up $3.6 billion in 2013'

BEIJING: China's domestic films made a strong comeback in 2013 after losing the box office battle to imported films in the previous year raking up $3.6 billion revenue.

Of the top ten highest-grossing films, seven were domestic, Zhang Hongsen, head of the film bureau under the State General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, said today.

The local films contributed 71.2 per cent of total annual box office revenues.

China's box office revenues totalled 21.77 billion yuan ($3.6 billion) in 2013, up 27.51 per cent year on year, Zhang said.

In 2012, China's box office revenue reached 17.07 billion yuan, with domestic and imported films accounting for 48.46 per cent and 51.54 per cent of total ticket sales, respectively, state run Xinhua news agency reported.

Domestic and imported movies raked in about 12.8 billion yuan and 9 billion yuan in 2013, according to the administration.

"Import quotas for Hollywood blockbusters and their inadequate screening arrangements have also resulted in the boom in the domestic film industry," said Zhang Huijun, president of the Beijing Film Academy.

Under a China-US film agreement signed in 2012, China increased its annual import quota of Hollywood blockbusters from 20 to 34, lifting imported films' share of revenue from 17.5 per cent to 25 per cent.

As a result, ticket sales for imported movies contributed 51.54 per cent of gross ticket revenue in 2012, ending domestic films' nine-year dominance at the box office.

"Successful market promotion and curiosity could have prompted many people to take a look at those films, no matter how unfavourably they had been reviewed," Zhang said.