From China to Australia, hope floats for the global box office amid Covid

There is a strong line-up of big-ticket films awaiting release in the second half of 2021

The exhibition sector will lose about $47 billion in box office revenues between 2020 and 2022. This does not include the loss of revenue from food and beverage, and advertising, both of which are profit drivers. More than $22 billion has already been wiped out from the global box office in 2020 over 2019. That is a fall of 71 per cent, from $26 billion to $3.7 billion.

Yet exhibitors (theatres) have remained resilient. Other than single sites in various countries, New Vision Theatres, MBO in Malaysia and UA Cinemas in Hong Kong were the only ones to