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Cinemas in parts of China have learned that they can now sell up to 50% of their tickets for each screening and play films longer than two hours without restrictions starting August 14, according to local reports and leaked guidelines.
Concessions can also be sold now, to snack in theaters, but, by way of laughter, as takeaway.
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The easing of restrictions in cinemas is a big positive sign for the Chinese panorama of Disney’s “Mulan,” which showed Monday that it would “soon” reach Chinese cinemas, and Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” which will debut in the country. September 4.
COVID-19 has dealt a blow to the global cash dreams of any of the films, with Disney opting to give up cinema in the high markets and release its remake live on its own streaming platform.
Chinese cinemas reopened for the first time in six months on July 20. The original national rules required them to limit the sale of priced tickets to only 30% of their maximum capacity to allow for greater social distance. They also banned the sale and takeover of concessions and called for the projections to last no more than two hours. Local government in some regions has begun asking cinemas to schedule a short break in longer films, but not in others.
The projection duration factor is now resolved in time for the start of the weekend of two most anticipated titles: a 3-d restoration, 4K of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” and the epic censored Chinese war. “The Eight Hundred,” any of which opened on Friday. It is also expected to premiere alongside them “Bad Boys for Life”, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, which lasts 123 minutes.
Giving cinemas the opportunity to sell up to some of the seats that will be obtained for each screening will be a boon to the operators. Business “is better than expected,” analysts say, but they remain slow as the audience seems to be expecting more exciting deals.
The nation’s top-successful cinema, a five-screen, 565-seat theater on Hainan Island, sold 1,379 tickets worth $7,000 on Tuesday.
The photographs below show the availability of tickets for two other Imax theaters in Beijing last Saturday night for the inaugural weekend of ‘1917’. Red icons involve already occupied seats, while closed grey seats are left empty for social distance. For a most popular weekend night main name, the 30% capacity rule left the maximum smart seats occupied, leaving only features on the front or side.
They come with the 2017 former American drama “The Current War”, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison and Nicholas Hoult as Nikola Tesla, who arrives in China on August 28. Co-produced through Harvey Weinstein and originally distributed through The Weinstein Company, the film’s Premiere got stuck in Weinstein’s sex abuse scandal and only debuted last fall. To date, it has raised $12 million worldwide, adding $6 million in North America.
Two Japanese names are also being prepared for release in theaters. These are the name of the 1999 Cannes Film Festival “Kikujiro”, written, directed and starring Takeshi Kitano, which is still dated, and “Masquerade Hotel”, a 2019 police film directed through Masayuki Suzuki that will be released in China on September 4. . Training
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