(Yicai) Sept. 2 -- Box office earnings from Chinese theaters fell this year’s summer holiday despite movies being played more times, according to the latest data.

China’s summer box office totaled CNY11.6 billion (USD1.6 billion) as of 8.00 p.m. on Aug. 30, down 40 percent from a year earlier, according to data from ticketing platform Beacon. Only one movie racked up more than CNY2 billion (USD281.3 million), down from four.

The number of moviegoers fell 40 percent to 295 million, Beacon data also showed.

However, the number of movie screenings rose 10 percent to record 38 million in the period, according to Beacon.

The real impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is beginning to show just now, Sun Jiashan, an associate researcher at the Central Academy of Culture and Tourism Administration, told Yicai. It takes one to two years to make a medium-to-low-budget movie and three to four years to make a high-budget one, so the lower number of projects in the past years resulted in fewer films now, Sun explained.

However, from the perspective of healthy industry development, a calmer market is relatively good, Sun noted. An overheated market would likely result in issues such as high remuneration for movie stars and fierce competition over performance skills, script quality, and other aspects.

The habits of moviegoers also changed during the pandemic, a producer told Yicai. They are now used to watch movies at home or attend other forms of entertainment, including on-site performances and games.

Editors: Xu Wei, Futura Costaglione