Why did the box office collectively cool down when 11 imported films were released in March?

In March, a total of 11 imported films including “The Rescue,” “Beaver Transformation Plan,” “Wuthering Heights,” and “Dark Bride” were released one after another. However, the overall box office performance of these imported films was very sluggish. As of 6 p.m. on March 31, the highest-grossing films were “The Rescue” (140 million yuan), “Beaver Transformation Plan” (120 million yuan), and “Wuthering Heights” (33.58 million yuan), while “Supreme Marty” (3.69 million yuan) and “Hello, Emily” (1.41 million yuan) had dismal box office results, showing a severe market polarization.

Good word-of-mouth also struggles to translate into strong box office

“This year’s new imported films mostly achieved simultaneous global releases and covered various genres such as science fiction, literary adaptations, and original animation,” said Hu Jianli, Secretary-General of the China Film Critics Society. “During this window when domestic blockbusters are temporarily lacking, relevant departments have accelerated the import process, which not only stabilizes the supply heat at cinemas but also satisfies the increasingly diverse aesthetic demands of audiences with richer cultural samples.”

Objectively speaking, the overall quality of these imported films released in March is not poor, and some have received good reviews. For example, “The Rescue” has a Douban score of 8.5, praised as “the best space sci-fi film since 2015.” “Supreme Marty,” starring Timothy Chalamet, has a Douban score of 7.3; Chalamet even won a Golden Globe for Best Actor for this film. There is also Pixar’s original animated film “Beaver Transformation Plan.”

The film promoters are also very active, such as Chalamet flying to China for roadshows, which attracted much attention but did not boost box office sales. Compared to the North American box office of $153 million released simultaneously, “The Rescue” shows a large gap, with some films even experiencing a “global popularity, mainland coldness” box office inversion.

Zhou Wenping, Director of the Film and Television Art Research Center at Guangzhou University, believes that the cooling market performance of imported films represented by Hollywood blockbusters is not sudden but is largely related to Hollywood’s long-term lack of innovation, monopolized by various IP series films, leading to audience fatigue.

For example, the new version of “Wuthering Heights” is the 35th film adaptation of this classic literary work, but the director deliberately exaggerated violent and sexual tension in the visual expression. This adaptation did not resonate emotionally with Chinese audiences. “L.A. Crime” is a remake of the classic IP “101 Series,” featuring top-tier stars, but the plot still follows the traditional “police chase + internal corruption” routine, and was criticized by Chinese audiences as a “beggar version of ‘Heat’.” Even Pixar’s highly anticipated original animation “Beaver Transformation Plan” was criticized by many viewers as “Pixar-style tenderness has become tiresome.”

Content expression is out of sync with Chinese audience preferences

“From the market performance of these imported films in March, it seems that their creative orientation no longer fully aligns with the mainstream aesthetic tastes of current Chinese audiences,” said Han Haoyue, a member of the Chinese Art Critics Association. “Today’s Chinese audiences have developed strong consumption inertia, and films with intense emotions, high resonance, and clear topics are more likely to succeed at the box office. The previously successful Hollywood ‘high-concept’ creative logic can no longer meet the increasingly refined aesthetic demands of Chinese viewers.”

In contrast, these imported films still adhere to traditional narrative and creative pursuits, often exploring eternal topics such as love, gender, and class in depth. For example, the failure of “Wuthering Heights” and other films is fundamentally due to their content expression being seriously out of sync with Chinese cultural contexts. Han Haoyue believes, “This indicates that both domestic and international audiences have developed distinct aesthetic divides and consumption behaviors, and it may also signal that the space for integration and collision between Chinese and foreign film creation is narrowing.”

According to film market researcher Jiang Yong, the collective underperformance of imported films is also related to the crowded release schedules of 11 films, which greatly squeezed promotional space, as well as the current age distribution of Chinese audiences. Data from Maoyan Research Institute shows that the proportion of viewers aged 30 to 39 has risen to 40%, becoming the main audience. Their core reasons for watching are “accompanying family/friends,” “good film reputation,” and “topic matches interests,” with the first accounting for as much as 62%. This social attribute creates a natural barrier for imported films, which are less suitable for family viewing, while domestic films like “Flying Past 3” and “Dagger Man: Wind Rising in the Desert” are more suitable as “social scene carriers.” Films like “Wuthering Heights,” filled with sensual elements, are naturally excluded from family viewing.

Jiang Yong believes that the current low box office performance of imported films reflects the awakening of Chinese audiences’ cultural subjectivity. Audiences no longer regard imported films as synonymous with “high quality,” but prefer domestic films that “fit their cultural context and emotional needs,” pursuing “Chinese stories, Chinese emotions, and Chinese values.” When imported films fail to meet these demands, their market performance becomes understandable.