We Bombed in Beijing: China's Movie Market Hates Hollywood

Despite the best efforts of the marketers in Hollywood, the films they distribute to China are losing market share to China’s domestic movie industry…

By Egon E. Mosum

Martin Scorsese, who knows a thing or two about movie making said, ‘Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.’

Sounds kind of like censorship. And not every country in the world has the same idea about what should be in the frame, and what should be out.

For some unsurprising reason, those countries that are a tad tyrannical, that have some version of a fearless leader, are more cinematically censorious.

When that country is China, a movie market that in 2025 has been estimated at over seventeen billion dollars,[1] you want to please the powers that be who determine what their audience will see.

When you don’t, it’ll cost you a lot of tickets and a lot of shekels.

Hollywood is realizing that now is the time for all good film to come to the aid of the party — the Chinese Communist party that controls the show. There are more movie viewers in China than there are people in the United States.[2]

But despite the best efforts of the marketers in California, the films they distribute are losing market share to the movie makers in China.

That’s because ‘as China has expanded its local film production, its audiences have gravitated toward the country’s own domestic fare, and Hollywood films have seen a significant decline in ticket sales from the region.’

Trump’s tariff war with the mainland hasn’t helped our movie industry any, as in a response to higher tariffs, ‘the Chinese government retaliated, including by restricting the number of Hollywood films it would allow to be showcased in its movie theaters.’[3]

The decline in revenues is a front kick in the ass to Hollywood, because ‘American movies' share of China's annual box office revenue has plunged from 36 percent in 2018 and 30 percent in 2019 to just 14 percent in 2024.’[4]

It appears that Bruce Lee is doing better than Spike Lee in that part of the world.

But it isn’t just an economic war carried over into the seats of the theater. The head of China’s Film Critic Association recently opined, ‘American stories often feel disconnected from Chinese life, making it harder to generate empathy or emotional response.’[5]

Now, lest the reader assume this market takedown is mainly due to a hatred for all things Western in the People’s Republic of Cinema, here’s a reality check, ‘Japanese animation continues to draw steady crowds, while European and Southeast Asian films are gaining ground.’[6]

Hollywood might wish to blame their tanking ticket sales in China on politics and/or economics, but even American audiences are growing a bit tired of the continuous sequels. (Are we at Rocky 18 yet?)

or the Marvel Multi-verse vs. Fast and Furious, or whatever the next pile of absolute digital dog rockets will be thrown at us at the local multiplex.

The cinematic efforts of countries with which China has had a horrible history are doing better than the Americans.  The Japanese were rather naughty in their medical torturing of the inhabitants of Nanjing during World War II, but their cartoons are performing well in dubbed Cantonese or Mandarin.

The Chinese movie-going audience is currently the second largest in the world. It will soon become the largest. Once, that market was very important in international sales for American movies, but nowadays, ‘for domestic films that do get a release in China, typically less than 10% of the film’s global gross box office revenue comes from China.’[7]

There are some cinematic exceptions to the above. Apparently, while the People’s Republic of China is not big on God, they seem to be big fans of Godzilla, because ‘"Godzilla X Kong" was one of the top 10 highest grossing films in China, making almost as much as it did in the U.S.’[8]

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

One of the ways we get our ideas and opinions about other nations and their cultures is through film, even though that’s looking through a somewhat distorted lens, too highly polished and of limited focal range. 

But it is important that there be an exchange of artistic endeavors between countries, especially those in opposition to each other, for it is much better to exchange box office blockbusters than ballistic missiles.

If we can keep the cultural lines open, perhaps we may lessen the chances of there being front lines of fighting.

When an international market for our movies shrinks, besides the economic effects, there is less cross-cultural pollination. That means creative isolationism, and therefore, less understanding between different cultures and people.

It is rather telling that the movie which seems to unite the interests of the American and Chinese movie going audience is Godzilla X Kong (Warner Bros.). The film did extremely well on both sides of the Pacific.

Even more interesting, from an ironic viewpoint, is the film debuted in the United States at Graumans Chinese Theater.[9]

Besides the larger societal loss of a Beijing that boos Hollywood, there is the domestic economic loss potential.

Less market share means less profits, less profits means fewer productions, and fewer productions means fewer jobs for people in the film industry.

When you couple declining revenues internationally (and domestically) with artificial intelligence and computer-generated graphics advancements displacing many of the creative talent in the movie industry, we may be looking at the end of an era with respect to American cinema.

In China, it is the party that controls the movie industry, and they don’t have the exact same financial needs as do the private producers of Hollywood. Their revenues are growing, their domestic audience share focused on Chinese concepts and cultural ways.

The isolationism movement in America, mainly targeting at limiting our involvement in foreign wars may be reflected in the mirror of an Eastern hemisphere that forcibly isolates our movie industry from the second largest market in the world, while embracing movies from Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia.

There may come a day when Hollywood is the third world of cinema, and China is number one on the world’s screens.

The film industry was a hallmark of American culture at one time. There was an era when we created such films as Twelve Angry Men and Inherit the Wind.

It will be a sad day when we wake up and realize that there’s no longer much to marvel at in the Marvel Multi-verse, and Gone With the Wind has been replaced by Godzilla, thanks to the People’s Republic of China.

Perhaps this is a preview of coming attractions.

[1] CINEMA-CHINA Statista https://www.statista.com/outlook/amo/media/cinema/china

[2] China’s Film Industry is Run Like Hollywood But By the Party Burja 12/13/23 Bismarck Brief https://brief.bismarckanalysis.com/p/chinas-film-industry-is-run-like

[3] Hollywood’s Chinese box office was already in decline even before Trump’s tariffs Whitten & Rizzo 4/11/25 CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/11/hollywood-chinese-box-office-trump-tariffs.html

[4] Hollywood's fading charm in China ── and why US tariffs are making it worse XINHUA 4/17/25 https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/609778

[5] IBID.

[6] IBID.

[7] Beijing bites back at US tariffs by curbing Hollywood film imports REUTERS 4/10/25 https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/beijing-bites-back-us-tariffs-by-curbing-hollywood-imports-2025-04-10/

[8] CHINA IS A VITAL MARKET FOR THE US FILM INDUSTRY Evans & Hoffman 4/10/25 CBS NEWS https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-us-film-industry-trump-trade-tension-impacts/

[9] GODZILLA X KONG Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_x_Kong:_The_New_Empire