China Welcomes Back Hollywood Films in Bid to Boost Spending

On her way to catch a foreign flick in Beijing, Jane Yao bought a cinnamon roll, had ramen, visited a bookshop, and dropped by a supermarket to grab some snacks.

- Bloomberg

Such an impulse splurge has become all too rare in China, a country where consumption growth is still far below pre-Covid levels and poses a major hurdle for the economy.

Equally surprising was Yao's choice of entertainment—a rescreening of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets during a retrospective showing across China not long ago—which drew a big crowd of mostly millennial viewers on a weekend afternoon.

A blockbuster run for many international films—old and new—stood out in a market whose overall box office receipts slumped to a decade low, excluding the pandemic.

Though deeply conflicted about foreign cultural influence, China aired 93 new imported films in 2024, the most since 2019, according to China Movie News, an outlet managed by the government body that oversees film approvals for local audiences.

President Xi Jinping's government has been cracking down on anything perceived as too Western or immoral at the box office in recent years.