China’s box office suffered a steep contraction in the first half of 2026 as takings fell to $2.56bn (RMB17.35bn), down by 40.6% year-on-year.
Some 421 million cinema admissions were recorded in the first six months from 73.29 million screenings nationwide. The average ticket price was $6 (RMB41.1).
Box office takings were marginally higher than the $2.53bn (RMB17.18bn) taken in the first half of 2022, at a time when cinemas were not always fully operational due to fresh waves of the Covid virus.
Excluding pandemic years, the figures are the lowest since 2014’s $2bn (RMB13.59bn), according to data released by ticketing platform Maoyan.
The top earners were Chinese New Year hit Pegasus 3 (the country’s 10th biggest film of all time), which took $650m (RMB4.42bn) and sleeper hit Dear You ($285m/RMB1.93bn). They were followed by Chinese New Year blockbusters Blades Of The Guardians: Wind Rises In The Desert ($212.9m/RMB1.44bn), Scare Out ($200.7m/RMB1.36bn) and animation Boonie Bears: The Hidden Protector ($157.8m/RMB1.07bn).
These were the only five films that surpassed the RMB1bn ($150m) mark.
A trio of Chinese-language crime thrillers were also in the top 10, including Taiwanese director Cheng Wei-hao’s Vanishing Point, Hong Kong director Longman Leung’s Cold War 1994 (both released during the Labour Day holiday, grossing $84m/RMB568m and $44m/RMB296m respectively), and Malaysian director Sam Quah’s The Fire Raven, which opened on December 31 and took $64m (RMB436m) in the first six months.
International features that were well received by Chinese audiences include Disney animation Zootopia 2, which earned $84.5m (RMB573m), and James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire And Ash, which took $62.9m (RMB427m). Compiling their earnings since opening in the last quarter of 2025, the final gross for Zootopia 2 was $677.5m (RMB4.59bn), making it the biggest box office hit since Ne Zha 2 and the seventh biggest film of all time, while Avatar: Fire And Ash earned a cume of $177.2m (RMB1.2bn).
While the Lunar New Year box office slid 39.5% year-on-year, the summer season, which started from June 1, has yet to deliver a smash hit that can reverse the flagging box office.
Last month saw Dear You continue to top the daily box office for a several days. New releases that topped the chart included Disney animation Toy Story 5, Kenji Tanigaki’s action feature The Furious, and historical war film Crossing, but each of their cumulative earnings as of June 30 was only around $29.5m (RMB200m) and below.
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