Coronavirus Movie Theater Closures Hit Half of the World’s Top 10 Box Office Markets

With the announcement on Wednesday that movie theaters in three Indian states will be closed through the end of March, half of the top 10 markets in the global box office now face at least partial shutdowns of their movie theaters due to the pandemic. The other countries in the top 10 that are facing various levels of closures are China, Japan, South Korea and Italy. China is the most severely hit, as tens of thousands of theaters nationwide have been closed since the start of the Lunar New Year holiday period in late January. That has erased a critical profit period for the Chinese box office that contributed $835 million to the country’s $9.3 billion total in 2019. Last week, financial analysts told TheWrap the coronavirus would cost the box office at least $5 billion in global revenue and possibly more if the pandemic persists well into the summer. Combined, the five top markets facing closures contributed approximately $16.5 billion to the global box office in 2019, according to the Motion Picture Association’s annual THEME report released on Wednesday. That’s 39% of the $42.2 billion grossed globally last year — though it’s worth noting that theater closures have not...

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