China closed swathes of cinemas on Friday in response to the outbreak of novel coronavirus, which started in the city of Wuhan and has now killed 26 people.
The closures come a day after the distributors and producers of the seven major blockbusters that had expected to launch from Jan. 25 cancelled their films’ releases.
Chinese New Year is the commercial high point of the cinema industry year in mainland China, with well over $1 billion of box office revenue normally anticipated to flow through turnstiles in a week of celebration and family gatherings. It is also the peak time of year for internal travel, when typically half of China’s 1.4 billion population return to their home towns to be reunited with family.
To prevent the spread of the disease – which may have originated from bats, but now appears to involve human-to-human transmission – Chinese authorities have now put seven cities into a form of lockdown.
Cinema chains closing their theaters include Wanda, Dadi, Lumiere Pavilions and CGV. But, for the moment, the closures are not nationwide, nor total. China counted some 70,000 screens in 11,000 complexes at the end of 2019.
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Cinema operators received a directive from government regulator the Film Bureau ordering cinemas to remain open unless local government authorities had insisted on closure. The populous and prosperous province of Guangdong is one where the regional branch of the Film Bureau ordered blanket closure of movie theaters for the duration of the Chinese New Year (a.k.a. Spring Festival) holidays.
“According to the current requirements for the prevention of new-type coronavirus pneumonia in our province, theaters will be closed from now until the Spring Festival holiday. Each theater company should guide and urge its theaters to implement measures for refunds and suspension,” the Guangdong authority said.
Lumiere Pavilions said it was still operating two complexes in the cities of Yang Zhou and Dan Yang, both in Jiangsu Province, as of Friday afternoon local time. Both are located within complexes operated by the Golden Eagle department store chains.