Movie Theaters Ordered to Close Again in China Amid Pandemic

The movie theaters in China are once again closing amid the global crisis.

Just hours after municipal authorities in Shanghai gave more than 200 cinemas the ability to re-open, national authorities ordered the theaters shut down again on Friday (March 27), Variety reported.

Approximately 500 theaters attempted to open again, with “little financial benefit from doing so,” with screenings averaging “less than a person a day,” resulting in daily box offices in the low thousands.

The national film bureau did not specific exactly why they were re-shuttered, or when they’d open again.

“The contradicting orders from different levels of government recall an incident in late February where the municipal authorities said that it would ease quarantine restrictions on the 11 million people locked down in the disease’s epicenter of Wuhan city, allowing those healthy to leave the city, only to cancel the edit hours later, saying it had been an ‘invalid’ decision made without higher authorization,” Variety reports.

Find out which movies Chinese theaters were attempting to use to bring viewers back to the movies…