China’s extended “super golden week” holiday saw cinemas’ box-office revenues slump compared to last year’s National Day break, but nationwide takings since the start of the year have already exceeded the total for all of 2024, reports the South China Morning Post. According to box-office tracker Dengta Data, cinemas raked in RMB 1.83 billion ($257 million) during the eight-day holiday, which ended on Wednesday. That was the second-lowest total since 2017 and down from the RMB 2.1 billion reported for the regular seven-day National Day holiday last year.
This year’s ticket sales were roughly on par with those in 2015. The weakest performance since then was in 2022, when sweeping pandemic lockdowns across China dragged the holiday box office to just RMB 1.5 billion.
The National Day holiday—extended this year because Monday’s Mid-Autumn Festival coincided with the golden week—is traditionally China’s second most lucrative film season, trailing only the weeklong Spring Festival or Lunar New Year period.