Chinese State Media Blames Flagging Box Office On Celebrity Culture And Bad Directors

Communist Party of China (CCP) newspaper People’s Daily launched a broadside against the country’s film industry on Thursday, blaming the sector’s dramatic reversal in fortunes on “terrible” and “mediocre” films.

“Some well-known directors have recently come out with terrible films,” the CCP’s mouthpiece wrote. “If it’s too easy to make money, it’s too easy for the finished product to be mediocre.”

The paper blamed a glut of new money in the the country’s film industry for a spate of low-quality domestic films that are failing to sustain China’s recent cinema market growth, likening it to the “resource curse” of economic theory.

What you get

Full access to all premium content and our full archives

Members'-only newsletters

Preferential access and discounts to all TechNode events

Direct access to the TechNode newsroom