(Yicai Global) June 6 -- China’s box office receipts approached a quarter of their pre-pandemic level during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, as movie theaters reopen for business.

Box office revenue tallied CNY178 million (USD27 million) during the three-day holiday period ended yesterday, according to ticketing platforms Beacon and Maoyan. During the same holiday period in 2021, sales reached CNY468 million and in 2019, they were as much as CNY785 million.

Big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are getting back to normal after lockdowns. Cinemas in the eastern megacity remain closed while less than 38 percent of those in Beijing are reopened. As of June 4, the national average was still much higher as almost 80 percent of cinemas were open, according to Beacon.

The film industry is among the last sectors to resume operations, a movie theater manager in Shanghai’s Yangpu district said to Yicai Global. The manager did not know yet when the cinema is allowed to reopen due to the eastern city's Covid-10 control and prevention policy.

The new releases are mainly romantic comedies or animations suitable for parents and kids to watch together, aiming to lure young moviegoers to go back to cinemas, Zhang Rongdi, industry analyst at Beacon, said to Yicai Global.

Two out of the three most popular movies in cinemas are foreign. The Bad Guys, an American computer-animated heist comedy, is No. 2 among the three. The third one is the Japanese animation film Doraemon: Nobita’s Little Star Wars 2021.

Movie ticket sales have exceeded CNY15.5 billion (USD2.3 billion) so far this year as of today, according to the two data platforms. But it would require a huge rebound to surpass the annual baseline of CNY64.3 billion recorded in 2019.

The movie industry has been greatly impacted by the pandemic so it needs policy assistance, according to a document issued recently by the government.

Editor: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi