Beijing's box office revenue tops $520m in 2017

BEIJING — Beijing's box office revenue topped 3.39 billion yuan ($520 million) in 2017, up 12.1 percent year-on-year, the Beijing Municipal Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television announced on Saturday.

Statistics show that city residents made 3.51 visits to the movie theater on average last year, an increase of 11 percent compared with the year before.

Box office revenue for all of China rose 13.45 percent in 2017 to more than 55.9 billion yuan ($8.6 billion), the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television said earlier this week. There were 6 domestic movies that earned more than one billion yuan ($150 million) last year.

Twenty-six new movie theaters were built in Beijing in 2017, and 211 screens were added, according to the municipal administration.

The capital city is planning to upgrade one-third of the movie projection equipment in rural areas in 2018, and pledged to build more movie theaters in the next five years.