10 Things We Learned About Cinema In 2017
8. Chinese Box Office Will Continue To Grow
2017 told the story of the rapid growth of the Chinese market in microcosm, and no movie told the story better than Wolf Warrior 2. Wu Jing's action sequel made a colossal $870.3m at the box office (more than Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Thor: Ragnarok), but incredibly less than a million dollars of that take came from international markets.
On the other side of the coin The Fate of the Furious, Transformers: The Last Knight, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, The Mummy and Geostorm all earned much more in China than they did at the domestic box office in what has been a recent trend with blockbuster sequels (especially poorly-reviewed ones), but six of the eight highest-grossing movies in China last year were still homegrown projects.
The country now finds itself in a unique position as a market for cinema; studios are now catering many of their projects to directly appeal to Chinese audiences in order to tap into a hugely lucrative revenue stream, but locally-produced movies are still pulling in massive numbers on a regular basis at a fraction of the cost of their Hollywood counterparts, such is the size of the potential (and rapidly expanding) audience.