Poster of "Monster Hunt."
The Chinese live-action animation feature, Monster Hunt amazed the global film market by raking in over 2.4 billion yuan ($370.56 million) last year.
The Chinese box office champion of all the time tells an epic adventure between a young man and a monster.
However, rumor has it that the movie is suspected of cheating in reporting box office figures. And recent investigations seem to prove that there is no smoke without fire.
According to China's state-level broadcaster, China Central Television (CCTV), the movie became the highest-grossing film in China by artificially boosting its ticket sales.
The movie took in 171 million yuan on the first day of screening, 300 million by day two, and 500 million by day three, setting the opening-day and single-day records of a domestic film.
Furthermore, it only took eight days to become the fastest Chinese movie to reach the milestone of 1.05 billion yuan in box office.
However, the film producer had announced public welfare screenings for some targeted groups in 29 cinemas nationwide on August 28, 43 days after the premiere.
Public welfare screening, a common practice for Chinese theaters and production companies, offers free tickets to young children, seniors, police, teachers and those with physical disabilities.
These targeted screenings were all arranged late at night, when there is a low theater occupancy rate, according to CCTV reporter Zhu Huirong.
The results are contrary to earlier self-released data that all screenings were well-received, with a 108 percent occupancy rate, which meant that eight out of every 100 people watched the two-hour movie without seats.
Also, Chinese netizens reported cases of film screenings in the middle of the night and multiple showings of the film on the same theater screen, scheduled about 10 minutes apart.
Meanwhile, movie industry insiders have revealed that inflating a film's box office receipts is an unwritten rule within the movie theater circles.
Gao Jun, former general manager of the New Film Association, said doing so costs little, about 10 percent of the total cost of the movie itself.
"Specifically, 5 percent of the fees were used for the 'Movie Special Fund', 3.3 percent for the circulation tax, 2 to 3 percent for the digital equipment," Gao said.
China's film market may be booming, but many problems remain to be resolved.
Sina Weibo user Baizhier said: "Chinese domestic films still have a long way to go before gaining its remarkable position in the global market and Monster Hunt is no exception. An amazing film should focus more on the plot, character and reputation, instead of movie effects and digital technology."
"The movie itself is a good movie due to a good platform, a strong production team, creative ideas and a bit of luck. However, I am sad for the producer to do some illegal things for the box office figures," said Weibo user Zhang Yinian.
Zhang Chao, theater manager of Huaqiang Fantawild Holding Company, said: "It is essential to make reforms to the current filmmaking industry policies. Filmmakers need to improve product quality, and policy makers need expand channels for closer communication between filmmakers and investors. Money has never been the key problem for China's film industry, but money has always been an essential standard in measuring the success of a movie."
As a matter of fact, Monster Hunt is not the only release involved with box office fraud. The distributor of the martial arts film, Ip Man 3 has admitted to fabricating box office figures to benefit from the stock market in March.
To check the momentum before things get worse, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), China's media watchdog, will take action in the near future.
According to Jiang Tao, office director of the Special Fund Committee of the National Film Industry Development, a large-scale campaign launched by the SARFT is on the way.
For instance, the administration will "set up a blacklist system for theater managers who are involved in cheating the box office figures," Jiang said.
"In addition, more monitoring cameras will be installed in theaters to ensure the occupancy rate. And a margin of error of over 2 percent will not be allowed to happen," he added.
