CN Movie Revenue

By Wan Zhixin

This data-driven analysis explores trends in China’s movie industry over the past decade, highlighting its growing global market share, top-performing genres, standout movies like Ne Zha, and the dominance of a few high-ROI films. It aims to provide insights into the factors driving success and China’s position in the international film market.

The data is obtained from the Kaggle and provided by the IMDB and TMDB. The original dataset title is “IMDB & TMDB Movie Metadata Big Dataset (over 1M)”.

Questions To Answer

  1. What are the top 10 most profitable movies in China over the past 20 years?
  2. How has the proportion of Chinese movie market changed in the past ten years?
  3. What is the total number of films shown in each country? Where does China stand?
  4. In the past 15 years, what are the most profitable movie genres in China each year?
  5. Is there a relationship between a movie’s revenue and its rating?

Summary of Findings

“Ne Zha” is the most profitable Chinese movie

This analysis uses ROI as a metric, which accounts for both cost and revenue to measure investment returns. “Ne Zha” stands out as the most profitable Chinese movie in the past 20 years, likely due to the lower production costs of animated films. Similarly, the 2012 horror movie “Bunshinsaba” (Bixian) ranked second, driven by its small-budget, high-box-office success. In 2021, Jia Ling’s movie “Hi, Mom” made it to the top 10, earning $822,049,668 in revenue.

China’s share of the global film market has grown over the past decade.

China’s share of the global film market has generally increased since 2014, surpassing 25% in 2023. However, globally, the U.S. still dominates the market. In 2020, the U.S. market share dropped significantly, likely due to the pandemic reducing the number of movie releases worldwide. Meanwhile, former cinematic powerhouses like France and Japan have shown lackluster performance over the past decade.

The U.S. remains the leader in movie production, with China in a strong position

On the global map, the U.S. stands out with the highest number of movies produced, far ahead of other countries. China, highlighted in noticeable purple, also performs strongly, ranking among the top producers. Other notable contributors include Russia and India, as well as France, Germany, Canada, and Brazil.

Chinese sci-fi movies are gaining popularity

Over the past 15 years, comedy and drama genres have consistently performed well in revenue. The high earnings of war movies in 2017 can be attributed to the blockbuster “Wolf Warrior 2.” Animated films saw exceptional success in 2019, driven by hits like “Ne Zha,” “White Snake (Baishe: Yuanqi),” and “Boonie Bears: Blast into the Past (Xiongchumo: Yuanshishidai).” After 2021, action movies also gained traction, with popular titles like “The Battle at Lake Changjin (Changjinhu)” and “Endgame (Renchao Xiongyong).”

Movies with a 7–8 rating earn the most revenue; few movies dominate profits

The scatterplot shows a slight positive correlation between ratings and revenue, with the highest revenue clustered around movies rated 7–8. These movies, likely commercial blockbusters, account for significant profits. However, the density of points below the regression line reveals that most movies earn relatively little, while a small number dominate the box office revenue.