If you were hoping this week’s CJ Marquee editorial would expound on actor Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars, you might be disappointed. There are plenty of other places to read hot takes on the shocking incident and keep abreast of all the latest finger pointing over who i…

While the cinema industry’s focus is on the upcoming Oscars and the world’s eyes are on the war in Ukraine, China is moving back into full lockdown region-by-region and city-by-city. Beijing’s “Zero Covid” policy means a clamp down on any cluster of outbreaks, even if i…

Back in February of 2020, when the coronavirus seemed to be an issue only affecting China, we were actively wary of the spreading virus becoming the only news Celluloid Junkie covered. After all, we had other matters to write about, like the upcoming CinemaCon. Of course, by March, COVID-19 had shut…

Watching the Twitter footage of the bombed out Youth Centre cinema in the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, I was reminded of the National Picture Theatre in the UK city of Hull. The latter cinema was largely destroyed by a German bomb in March 1941. When the air-raid siren sounded, the cinema was screen…

Most of us have only experienced war as filtered through the camera lens of Hollywood onto the cinema screen. But a real war is playing out in Europe right now; one whose true horror we only catch glimpses of through snatches of phone cameras and CCTV footage. A war that few imagined and nobody butR…

As February draws to a close, all of us in the northern hemisphere are looking forward to spring. Meteorological spring starts 1 March, but astronomical spring has to wait until 20 March, which is also the start date for Le Printemps du Cinéma (Springtime for Cinema) in France. The annual festival w…

On Thursday, 17 February, the CJ Cinema Summit will be focusing on China. We’ll be joined by Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore who will explain how China managed to secure five of the top 10 global box office titles last week. We’ll also hear from Lawrence Wang, the CEO of Vista China about…

Patrick von Sychowski is traveling this week so you’re stuck with me. Though before I forget, if you missed John Fithian of NATO and Charlotte Jones of Omdia on our last CJ Cinema Summit, you can always catch the session on-demand. And be sure to register for our next session on 17 February. W…

If you listen to film purists, the switch to digital cinema led to the death of the projectionist craft, VPF-enforced superhero multiplex programming and bad 3D. So what good has digital actually done for cinema? A new research paper by Anne-Britt Gran from the Oslo Business School called “Dig…

It is exactly two years since China closed all of its cinemas as part of its effort to stop the spread of the new Coronavirus that had originated in Wuhan. The closures on the eve of the all-important Spring Holiday (a.k.a. Chinese/Lunar New Year), when the biggest local blockbusters are released (a…