Chinese summer box office closes at 12.5 billion yuan and with the lowest ticket price since 2022
Between June 1 and August 31, Chinese cinemas took in 12.498 billion yuan with 340 million admissions. Screenings hit a historic high, domestic films account for almost 72% of the market.
The Chinese cinema summer season closed on August 31 with 12.498 billion yuan in box office revenue and 340 million admissions: +4.45% and +5.86% respectively over summer 2025. The data comes from the National Film Administration and was released by Chinanews via CCTV News, by Chao News and by Guangming Online, which adds figures from ticketing platforms.
More screenings, cheaper tickets
The detail that explains the growth lies not in the revenue but in how it was built. The season’s screenings totaled 38.51 million, a historic high for a Chinese summer; the average ticket price fell to 36.74 yuan, the lowest level since summer 2022. The market therefore grew by increasing the supply of screenings and lowering the unit price — with admissions rising faster than revenue, which is exactly what happens when tickets cost less.
| Title | Revenue (billion yuan) |
|---|---|
| Kung Fu Women’s Football | 2.315 |
| Welcome to the Dragon Restaurant | 1.951 |
| Ba Xian! (animation) | 1.846 |
| Spider-Man: Brand New Day | 1.539 |
| Odyssey | 0.603 |
Four of the five most-watched titles are Chinese productions, and overall domestic films accounted for 71.71% of the season’s revenue. The animated film Ba Xian! broke the box-office record for an animated film in the last five summer seasons. The only foreign title in the top five, the Spider-Man film, comes in at just under two-thirds of the top earner.
“domestic films shone particularly brightly” (transl. from Chinese) — Chen Jin
The statement is attributed to Chen Jin in the season’s source materials; the available sources do not specify their role or the outlet of origin, and this contextual detail should be read with that caveat.
Who’s going to the cinema
More than 120 new films were released over the course of the season, covering a range of genres: sports, traditional Chinese-style animation, revolutionary history, realist drama, comedy. In audience satisfaction surveys, seven of the fourteen films rated scored above 85 points.
The demographic data is perhaps the most significant for the medium term: according to Dengta figures, the share of viewers over forty rose to 25.9%, up 3.2 percentage points and a historic high. In a market that has for years relied on young audiences, a quarter of the audience being over 40 changes the calculus of what is worth producing.
Not everything went smoothly. The early withdrawal of several titles from theaters during the season fueled a debate over eroding audience trust: if a film can disappear from theaters ahead of schedule, viewers learn to wait.
As of August 31, 2026, China’s total revenue for the year stood at 28.21 billion yuan with 717 million admissions: summer therefore accounted for just under half of the total recorded so far this year.
What we don’t know
We do not have a comparison with summer 2019, nor the complete historical series that would allow the 12.498 billion figure to be placed within a multi-year trend. We do not know the number of active theaters during the period, which is the denominator needed to interpret the screening record. We do not know which titles were withdrawn early or for what reasons, and the methodology behind the satisfaction scores is not described in the excerpts.
The next date on the Chinese calendar is the October holiday week, about which today’s released data says nothing.
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