Some cinemas gradually reopen across country as restrictions begin to ease

CFP

More cinemas across China have reopened slowly after the country eased some COVID-19 controls, news portal Thepaper.cn reported Tuesday.

Major cities such as Guangzhou, Zhengzhou and Shenyang have allowed cinemas to reopen with limited capacity.

As of December 3, 180 cinemas in Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province, have resumed operations to roughly the numbers seen in October this year, according to Maoyan, a Chinese movie-ticketing and film data platform.

Curtains were raised in 42 movie theaters in Zhengzhou, in central China's Henan Province, after the provincial capital lifted its COVID-19 lockdown on November 29.

But certain pandemic prevention measures are still in place as moviegoers are required to have negative PCR test results within 48 hours and only 50 percent of seats can be sold in order to avoid overcrowding in Shenyang, Liaoning Province.

Cinemas in high-risk areas still remain closed in Chengdu and Chongqing in southwestern China.

However, some chain movie theaters failed to survive the COVID-19 pandemic with famous cinema chain Emperor UA Cinema filing for bankruptcy and closing down seven cinemas on the Chinese mainland on November 21.

China's box office next month is expected to be strongly boosted by the release of James Cameron's "Avatar: The Way of Water," the long-awaited sequel to 2009's "Avatar."

On Maoyan, around 800,000 Chinese movie enthusiasts have expressed strong intentions to watch the epic science fiction film.

The film will be released on December 16 in both standard and IMAX theaters in China.