Theater operators in China look to the remaining weeks of 2020 to deliver their Hollywood ending, Xu Fan reports.

The Sacrifice is one of China's top box-office draws this year. (CHEN YUYU / FOR CHINA DAILY)

Struggling with a shortage of appealing films, November has hit a seven-year low at China's box office, making theater managers place their hopes on the upcoming blockbusters set for release in the last month of the year.

As of Wednesday, all films screened this month have grossed a cumulative total of 1.45 billion yuan (US$220 million), around 40 percent of the earnings for the same period in 2019, according to Beacon, a live movie-information tracker.

I wish every film could get a fair opportunity to be seen by more people on giant screens

Pema Tseden, director of Balloon, speaking of the limited screening time for art films in Chinese cinemas

The number of new releases has also shrunk, with 43 titles set for November, down 35 percent from the 66 titles presented in the same month last year, according to the China Film Distribution and Screening Association.

After domestic theaters reopened in late July, the film market saw an upward movement until October, making its post-outbreak recovery faster than most industry insiders had expected, says Yu Chao, deputy general manager of Beijing-based Capital Cinema.

The Eight Hundred earned more than 3 billion yuan. My People, My Homeland raked in 2.8 billion yuan.

"Such figures were high even for a blockbuster before COVID-19, indicating that the recovery was robust,"Yu adds.

Some industry observers had once estimated that China's box-office haul would surpass 20 billion yuan this year, reducing losses to lift the pandemic-affected industry. But that hope is now being dampened by a lackluster November.

In the past, November has been a festival of imported films. Following a box-office bonanza for Chinese films over the National Day holiday week in October, November is usually a time to savor exotic flavors as a raft of fresh domestic films gear up for the New Year and Spring Festival holiday season.

Distributors also try to use up the leftover quotas for imported films before a year ends, says Yu.

November releases in China included Frozen II and Terminator: Dark Fate in 2019; Venom and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2018; and Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League in 2017.

Most Hollywood studio films are usually released simultaneously or around the same time in North America and China, Yu says, but the winter surge of COVID-19 in the United States has had an impact on the Chinese film market this year.

Earlier this month, more than 700 cinemas were closed again in North America due to COVID-19, according to Hollywood Reporter.

In addition, most newly released Chinese films in November came with huge hype and expectations, but failed at the box office.

With A-list star Huang Bo serving as executive producer, the film Back to the Wharf was released in the first week of November and was initially expected to be a hit for its reflection of social issues. Some reviews say the film flopped for "holes in the script".

Hong Kong megastar Andy Lau's Find Your Voice also took a nose dive at the box office.

Lauded as the Chinese equivalent of the 2004 French classic The Chorus, the film follows an orchestra conductor's effort to help a group of teenagers establish a school chorus. It has familiar faces who once laid the foundations of the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, such as composer Lowell Lo and actor Eddie Kwan.

The film has been widely criticized for its poorly told story, exemplified by its score of 4.8 points out of 10 on the review site Douban.

But many viewers say they were moved by Lau, who has tried to use his influence to support new talent and revive the Hong Kong film industry.

"With his popularity and status in showbiz, Lau doesn't need to be cast in such a film. To some extent, the film is more like him 'feeding' Hong Kong cinema," says Hong Fan, an associate professor of literature at the Beijing Film Academy.

Another film arousing nostalgia for the best era of Hong Kong films, Caught in Time, has done well despite mixed reviews. The film overtook the war film The Sacrifice as the single-day top grosser on Nov 20.

Daniel Wu, who stars in the film as a ruthless gangster, said in an earlier interview that he joined the film to support Hong Kong cinema.

"I had cooperated with director Lau Ho-leung when he worked as scriptwriter for the films Triple Tap and New Police Story (both starring Wu), so I really wanted to help him when I heard it would be his new directorial outing," he says.

Ethnic Tibetan writer-director Pema Tseden's latest outing, Balloon, was released on Nov 20. The film was nominated for awards at both the Venice and Toronto film festivals, notching up a score of 7.9 point out of 10 on Douban.

The film was billed as a draw for art-house enthusiasts, but the film's screenings fell abruptly from 2.4 percent on the first day to 1 percent on the second, as most theater operators prefer to give more screenings to lucrative blockbusters such as Caught in Time.

Pema Tseden posted on Sina Weibo that he wishes theaters would raise the amount of screen time for art films in cinemas.

Mentioning producer Fang Li "kneeling to beg for more screenings" of the art-house film Song of the Phoenix in 2016, Pema Tseden says he hopes he won't be forced to do the same.

"I wish every film could get a fair opportunity to be seen by more people on giant screens," he says.

His words are echoed by many fans online.

For theater operators struggling to survive the industry's "winter", the remaining weeks of 2020 are their last hope.

Chinese master director Zhang Yimou's One Second and Hollywood DreamWorks Animation's The Croods: A New Age are set to hit Chinese theaters on Nov 27.

Warner Bros' Wonder Woman 1984 and Disney's Soul are to be released in China in December.

Contact the writer at xufan@chinadaily.com.cn