{"id":329630,"date":"2025-12-07T04:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/329630\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T04:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:42:07","slug":"china-audiences-favored-animation-and-war-epics-in-2025-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/329630\/","title":{"rendered":"China Audiences Favored Animation and War Epics in 2025, Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tChinese audiences pushed animation, action and historical war films to the top of 2025\u2019s satisfaction charts, while comedies and romance all but disappeared from favor, according to new research unveiled at the 7th Hainan Island International Film Festival<\/a>, China<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a forum presentation at the festival, Sun Xianghui, president of the China Film Art Research Center, revealed that consumer satisfaction scores for those genres outdid others in the center\u2019s 2025 survey, with films like the Nanjing massacre WWII epic \u201cDead to Rights\u201d, and animation juggernaut \u201cNe Zha 2\u201d leading in both satisfaction scores and box office returns.<\/p>\n

\n\tMirroring trends seen in Western markets, the study showed that Chinese audiences have largely abandoned comedies and romance films in 2025, with not a single romance film figuring in the top satisfaction scores of the survey.<\/p>\n

\n\tChina\u2019s local film box office has netted $6.7 billion in the year to date, a figure significantly higher than 2024\u2019s $5.8 billion total. Excluding December\u2019s take, local films counted for some 83.8% of the box office.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn 2025, global film production has entered a period of slow growth,\u201d said Sun. \u201cEuropean production capacity is limited, and the traditional Hollywood growth model shows fatigue, with diminished appeal for blockbuster production and markets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe recent success of \u201cZootopia 2\u201d<\/a> at the Chinese box office, however, and the eagerly anticipated premiere of \u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash<\/a>\u201d at the same festival, suggests this downbeat assessment to be a tad presumptuous.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs of writing, \u201cZootopia 2<\/a>\u201d has crossed $393 million at the Chinese box office.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film has grossed more in China than at the domestic North American market ($187 million), a fact Sun was eager to highlight, but also suggests the continued intertwining of fates between Hollywood studios and Chinese audiences.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeparately, film officials were keen to promote international production in Hainan, pointing to its imminent designation as a Free Trade Port on Dec. 18 as a distinct selling point for producers.<\/p>\n

\n\tOfficials also dangled carrots in the form of living subsidies of up to RMB1 million ($141,000) for \u201cleading talents,\u201d and between RMB200,000- 500,000 RMB ($28,000 \u2013 $70,700) for \u201cinternational talents\u201d, as well as visa-free entry for personnel from 86 countries.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new Free Trade Port status also promises zero tariffs for imported film production equipment, and income tax incentives for foreign \u201chigh-level talent,\u201d while post houses and visual effects companies can, in principle, operate as wholly foreign-owned enterprises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese audiences pushed animation, action and historical war films to the top of 2025\u2019s satisfaction charts, while comedies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5960,49,48,95,75,145386,337,61746],"class_list":{"0":"post-329630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-avatar-fire-and-ash","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-hainan-island-international-film-festival","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-zootopia-2"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}