China overtakes US in screens but cinemas sit empty
ZHUOLU TOWN, China — The brightly-decorated 3-D cinema in this town outside Beijing is showing the latest Chinese and Hollywood films, to row after row of empty red seats. So few people come to watch films here that the theatre manager rents out the halls to travelling sales companies or music teachers.
China has overtaken the U.S. in terms of the number of its cinema screens, becoming the world’s biggest movie market by that measure. But away from the bigger cities you wouldn’t know it.
In this theatre in a county seat near Beijing, the ticket-seller sitting behind the counter with nothing to do and a ticket-collector lying down watching films on his phone are signs something’s amiss with China’s non-stop building of cinemas.
Industry analysts foresee only more and more screens. But Zhuolu’s residents are typical of Chinese who are not in the habit of movie-going, preferring to watch films online for free.