Cinema's summer love story

Official statistics show the country's box-office receipts from January to June totaled 31.2 billion yuan, down 2.7 percent compared to the same period last year.

There was also a decline in the number of theatergoers. Cinemas on the mainland registered 808 million admissions, a drop of 10.3 percent year-on-year.

Domestic films have encountered bigger challenges than their foreign rivals. From January to June, movies produced by local studios earned 15.8 billion yuan, a fall of nearly 17 percent compared to 2018.

However, China has still kept up the construction spree, with new cinemas continuing to open their doors, bolstering its position as the country with the highest number of screens, since it overtook the United States in 2016.

As of June 30, China has 64,944 cinema screens, with around 90 percent of them－or 58,179－being 3D format. There are 5,423 cinemas in county-level cities, providing access to 23,589 screens. These figures account for 46 and 36 percent of their national totals, respectively, signaling that small cities are still considered to be the markets with the biggest potential.

However, it is online reviews from other cinemagoers that mostly decide a new film's market performance, says Fu Haifang, general manager of Zhejiang Star Lights Cinema Chain.

Unlike in the past, when filmmakers unwillingly gave sneak previews that could cause spoilers, a lot of the forthcoming Chinese films will have test screenings one or two weeks earlier than their official releases across the mainland.