The last two entries in the main series, Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious, both grossed more than US$1 billion globally and around US$390 million in China.

F9’s early success offers fresh relief that big-budget Hollywood tentpoles can still perform well in a region that Hollywood has relied heavily on to boost global box-office numbers in recent years, but where local productions largely dominated during the pandemic.

The pandemic has greatly accelerated China’s box-office dominance over the US, which could also have major ramifications. 

The Chinese cinema industry experienced an incredible rebound after the region’s thousands of theatres shut down for months during the pandemic. Local films did gangbuster business while Hollywood releases like Soul and Wonder Woman 1984 underwhelmed. 

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Local films accounted for 85 per cent of China’s box office in 2020, up from 60 per cent in 2018, according to the analytics company Comscore. The top 10 grossing films at the China box office from April 1, 2020 to March 29, 2021 were all locally produced.

Gitesh Pandya, the editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com, noted in April that Hollywood delayed many of its biggest films, and that the right movie could still sell. 

“There’s certainly plenty of hope in Hollywood that China will still be a crucial market,” Pandya said at the time.

Since then, Godzilla vs. Kong (which has made US$183 million there) and now Fast and Furious 9 have eased some concerns.

But while the US market is showing some signs of life (Godzilla vs. Kong is nearing US$100 million domestically), China has dethroned the US as the biggest theatrical market in the world. 

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The research firm Ampere Analysis had projected China to overtake the US by 2022 before the pandemic. It now expects China to remain at the top indefinitely as the US market slowly springs back. 

Ampere Analysis research director Richard Cooper said that China’s theatrical market will continue to expand and ticket sales will rise, along with Chinese revenue for US films, while the US theatrical market will shrink. 

“The previously stable US market will reduce in size following the pandemic,” Cooper said. “This is largely due to a forecast downturn in film financing and the fact that some US cinemas will close permanently.”

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