Top cultural events of 2013

[Photo by Ren Weihong/Asianewsphoto]

3. Chinese mainland box office earns 20 billion yuan

Chinese mainland box offices reached a total record of 20 billion yuan as of December 8, 2013, an increase of 34.63 percent from the same period last year.

The Chinese mainland has become the 2nd largest film market after the US.

Fang Bin, general manager of Dadi Cinemas, listed four reasons behind the increase – rising numbers of cinemas and screens, better quality, more foreign movies and media publicity.

Domestic movies developed faster this year, accumulating a box office total of 11.123 billion yuan, accounting for 55.52 percent of the total number. Box office totals of more than 20 domestic movies reached 100 million yuan, a number that is no longer considered amazing.

Han Sanping, chairman of China Film Group, said in an interview that the movie industrialization started late and the industry and technology level is far behind Hollywood. With the disadvantages, domestic movies once were not as attractive as foreign ones. In recent years, great progress has been made on domestic movies. The combination of the most advanced technology in the world along with orginal Chinese stories will make Chinese films more competitive.

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