China’s film authorities have suspended the license of a distributor that inflated box office figures for Hong Kong martial arts movie Ip Man 3 (葉問3), according to state media.
The third installment of the franchise starring Donnie Yen (甄子丹) opened in China on March 4 and soon attracted allegations of fraud after it reportedly earned more than 500 million yuan (US$77.3 million) in just four days.
The movie’s distributor, Dayinmu, which is also known as Beijing Max Screen, admitted to having bought 56 million yuan’s worth of tickets, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.
“The conspirators fabricated more than 7,600 screenings of the film that they claimed generated 32 million yuan in ticket sales,” it added, citing China’s film bureau under the Chinese State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
“These kinds of issues could be considered inevitable in a young industry, but box office fraud has become so serious that it is already harming Chinese cinema,” bureau head Zhang Hongsen (張宏森) was quoted as saying.
The bureau ordered the company to suspend distribution for a month while it “rectifies all malpractices” and gave formal warnings to three electronic ticket-selling groups involved in the fraud, as well as 73 cinemas, the agency said.
No telephone number was listed for Dayinmu and it had no immediate statement on its official microblog.
Chinese cinemas and distributors have been accused of faking ticket sales in the past, for example by buying up tickets or counting some of the earnings of one film as those of another. While a distributor would have to fork out money to buy thousands of tickets, the bulk-buying might boost the movie’s profile enough to become a talking-point and attract a bigger audience.
The producers of China’s briefly highest-grossing movie, live-action and animated fantasy Monster Hunt, admitted last year to buying tickets worth 40 million yuan, which it said was for free screenings for senior citizens and others.
After the release of Ip Man 3, which also stars US former boxer Mike Tyson, state media reports soon alleged that its distributor had bought discount tickets in bulk from various cinema chains, which then scheduled “ghost screenings” after midnight at expensive rates.
China’s film market has grown fast in recent years to become the world’s second-largest after the US.
Dozens of cinemas received punishments, including warnings, removal of funding and suspensions, for box office fraud last year, the news agency said.
In January, the administration said it was developing an app to help moviegoers report fake tickets as part of a crackdown against box office fraud.
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