(Yicai Global) July 21 -- The few movie theaters that reopened in China yesterday after a six-month closure to help bring the coronavirus to heel sold an encouraging number of tickets.

The 19 movies shown at Baiyulan Plaza's CGV Cinemas in Shanghai were all sold out, with the top releases being First Farewell, Coco, and Sheep Without a Shepard, according to a post on China Film Report’s Weibo account. 

Nearly all of the 128,000 tickets issued for the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival, which will be held from July 25 to Aug. 2, were sold in an hour yesterday morning on Alibaba's online ticketing platform Taopiaopiao. 

The strong demand may partly be explained by limited supply. Cinemas will need to leave 70 percent of their seats empty during each screening to ensure customer safety, according to the China Film Administration. They also need to extend the intervals between each showing and disinfect halls regularly.

That may have prompted some to keep their doors locked. Some 835 film theaters had reopened as of yesterday evening, making up less than 7 percent of the total, according to Taopiaopiao. Most of those are in Shanghai or the provinces of Zhejiang and Shandong. Nearly 10,000 screenings were organized yesterday, with 112,000 patrons.

Despite the opportunity to reopen, theaters are still under financial strain because of the limited number of tickets on offer in order to maintain social distancing and all the necessary anti-epidemic preparations, The Paper reported, citing industry insiders.

But for now at least, it is a moviegoer's market. On the first day back, the cost of a ticket hovered around an average of CNY20 (USD2.90) in the big box office cities of Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Chengdu. Some were even being sold for as little as CNY9 (USD1.29) each. 

Editor: Emmi Laine