USA and Asian box office experience a great crisis due to coronavirus pandemic, which caused the closing of theatres worldwide.
The unprecedented situation regarding the spreading of coronavirus has hit the global economy. Cinemas are not out of the picture: the box office crisis has hit almost every country. China is the first country whose box office has been severly damaged due to coronavirus. At the end of January, 70.000 cinemas were forced to shut down. The decrease in Chinese box office between January and February 2020 amounts to -96.2%. The collapse has spread throughout the Asian continent reaching a general decrease of -85%. In South Korea the decrease of tickets sold is up to 58.7% while in Japan it reaches 41%.
Nonetheless, American box office aren’t out of danger either. The first three months presented a decrease of 25%, translated to 600 milion dollars. Since March, the collapse has got worse, reaching a 74% decrease, as coronavirus reached USA and Canada. From January 1st to March 19th, the day most theatres shut, the sales of tickets resulted in 1,8 billion dollars. In comparison, the first three months of 2019 had profited 2,41 billion dollars.
While it is still early to determine the extent to which worldwide box office are at loss in 2020, it is unfortunately certain that the American market finds itself in difficult times. The crisis has since now led to a loss of 7 billion dollars. If cinemas will not re open by the end of May 2020, the loss could amount to 15-17 billion dollars.
