Cinema's summer love story

Statistics from the box-office tracker Beacon show that three weeks from June 24 to July 14 earned 1.1 billion yuan, 1.17 billion yuan and 1.27 billion yuan, respectively.

Each week's figure is more than the total 1.03 billion yuan grossed over the entire summer of 2008, when the country's film industry just began to take off.

Following Marvel's superhero blockbuster Spider-Man: Far from Home, which topped the Chinese mainland's box office charts for two weeks in a row between late June and early July, Hong Kong crime thriller The White Storm 2: Drug Lords took up the baton to dominate the 27th week of 2019 thanks to its stellar cast and the duo of Andy Lau and Louis Koo, two regional icons of the silver screen.

With its touch of nostalgia, the live action remake of the 1994 Oscar-winning animated Disney feature, The Lion King, is currently this week's top earner.

Most analysts believe that the Chinese film market is quite likely to emerge from the shadow cast by the market slowdown in the first half of this year.

Many industry insiders describe the first half of the year as "a severe winter" through which they needed to huddle together for warmth to survive, as it has been hard to raise the capital to shoot films and secure screen time in theaters.