Although the box office revenue for the Spring Festival holiday in 2018 set a new record, Chinese audiences are looking for more high-quality domestic movies, an industry expert said Thursday.
Luo Libin from Beijing International Studies University said that during the Spring Festival holiday from Feb. 15 to 21, the movies winning higher box office revenue were the better quality ones.
Luo said in 2004, China's box office revenue only accounted for 0.7 percent of the world market, while the country's GDP took up 4.5 percent of the world then. In 2015, the two percentages both rose up to 18.5 and 14.9 percent respectively.
Luo believed these figures showed that the film market grew faster than the economy and China's movie industry has moved to the next level.
"Whoever provides better films for the public will be one step ahead," he said.
About 10 domestic films from genres such as fantasy, comedy, action, and animation amongst others hit screens during the holiday and the Chinese film market earned over 5.6 billion yuan (880 million U.S. dollars) in ticket sales, about 2 billion more than last year, China Film News reported on Wednesday.
Luo said it was not the responsibility of just one or two film companies to provide better films for the market, but also the duty of the industry supervisor to create a good environment.
He suggested the authority to improve the protection of intellectual property rights and further open up the Chinese film market to enhance the competitiveness.
In 2017, China's movie box office revenue rose 13.45 percent to more than 55.9 billion yuan, with domestic films contributing 53.84 percent.
