# There are a lot of movie theaters in China !!! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 12, 2017, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920 "2017-01-12T00:55:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920/1 "2017-01-12T00:55:30Z")
Look at this link for Rogue One [http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Rogue-One-A-Star-Wars-Story/China#tab=international](http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Rogue-One-A-Star-Wars-Story/China#tab=international) It is mind boggling the number of theaters in China that are showing Rogue One 90 347 theaters in China !!! Compared with 4157 theaters in North America. There are other articles that one can find with a search that show that China has more theaters than North America I would not have guessed that !!! ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920/2 "2017-01-12T01:47:35Z")
There’s something wrong with that statistic. [This article from the Wall Street Journal](http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/11/14/china-set-to-overtake-u-s-as-worlds-largest-cinema-market/) said that at the end of September there were almost 40,000 screens in China and that the number of screens was about to exceed the US total. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920/3 "2017-01-12T01:54:53Z")
If you look at the column heading, you’ll see that the same number is reported for Opening Weekend Theaters, Maximum Theaters, and Theatrical Engagements. My guess is that the number actually reflects theatrical engagements, which is the number of times the movie was show across all screens. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920/4 "2017-01-12T02:01:31Z")
I lived there from 2003-2005. Movie theaters were somewhat rare at that time. The only movie I saw there was Revenge of the Sith in May 2005. We had to search in Beijing, yes even in Beijing, to find a theater. It wasn’t super hard, but theaters were not everywhere back then. I knew it was a huge untapped market. The DVD sales over there, mainly copied ones, are huge. ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920/5 "2017-01-12T02:28:40Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > If you look at the column heading, you’ll see that the same number is reported for Opening Weekend Theaters, Maximum Theaters, and Theatrical Engagements. My guess is that the number actually reflects theatrical engagements, which is the number of times the movie was show across all screens. Good point, I also noticed the difference. If you take the China numbers and divide them by 4 one gets around 22 500 theaters which is more realistic number but still over 5 times the theaters in Canada/USA !!! ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920/6 "2017-01-12T04:38:51Z")
Yeah, but they have fewer exclamation marks. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920/7 "2017-01-12T10:12:58Z")
Huh. I was sure that this was going to be links to illegal copies made from said Chinese theaters, with the funnily bad subtitles. ---
**Author:** ![Wolverine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba9def/32.png) [@Wolverine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolverine)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920/8 "2017-01-12T11:34:07Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I knew it was a huge untapped market. The DVD sales over there, mainly copied ones, are huge. Not anymore. Most of the DVD shops are closed and the supermarkets no longer have a section of legal DVDs to buy. Everyone streams content over their phones instead. The only stores that I know are still open are next to foreign grocery stores because many foreigners don’t know how to navigate the Chinese video services and foreign video services like Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube are all blocked. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920/9 "2017-01-12T13:40:53Z")
And in front of Mann’s American Theatre, you can see Mao’s footprints in cement! ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-a-lot-of-movie-theaters-in-china/776920/10 "2017-01-12T14:37:49Z")
[From Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_China#Box_office_and_screens): > [@](#): > > Box office and screens > By January 6, 2014, there were 18,195 screens in the country.[79] Greater China has around 251 IMAX theaters.[85] There were 299 cinema chains (252 rural, 47 urban), 5,813 movie theaters and 24,317 screens in the country in 2014.[2] > > The country added about 8,035 screens in 2015 (at an average of 22 new screens per day, increasing its total by about 40% to around 31,627 screens, which is about 7,373 shy of the number of screens in the United States Even if every screen in the country was showing Rogue One, the numbers don’t add up. StG Edited to add: !!!