Chinese film executive commits suicide as coronavirus-stricken movie industry tanks
The negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt in almost every industry in China, but the country’s film industry has suffered more than most.
Since the outbreak erupted late last year, more than 70,000 screens in around 10,000 venues across China were ordered to shutter, while countless movies in production were forced to take a deep freeze. While China unveiled a set of rules last month about reopening higher-risk public locations, movie theaters are still facing an uncertain future in the absence of a specific permission from the country’s film regulators.
This week, the anxiety and stress felt by people who work in China’s film industry has been amplified by the death of Huáng Wēi 黄巍, who was the vice president of Bona Film Group,
one of the largest film distribution companies in China.
On June 10, Huang jumped to his death from the 18th-floor offices of Bona’s headquarters in Beijing. The 52-year-old senior executive joined Bona in 2009 and was in charge of the company’s cinema division. During his time at Bona, Huang, who had more than 15 years of work experience in China’s film industry, helped the company sign and build hundreds of movie theaters across the country.
Huang’s death immediately prompted a wave of speculation about the reasons for his suicide, with a large number of people suspecting it was the coronavirus outbreak and its damaging impacts on Bona’s business that pushed Huang over the edge.
Today, in response to mounting rumors, Bona issued a brief statement (in Chinese) regarding the incident, saying that Huang was struggling with chronic insomnia and depression before taking his own life.
While it remains unclear whether the COVID-19 pandemic played a significant role in the mental disorders Huang was grappling with, his death has sparked an urgent plea for financial assistance and reopening plans from people working in the Chinese film industry.
“It’s time to consider allowing movie production to begin and movie theaters to reopen. Beijing has downgraded its emergency response level from 2 to 3, and most of the businesses in China have returned to normal operations,” Jiǎ Zhāngkē 贾樟柯, one of China’s most prominent filmmakers, wrote (in Chinese) in a Weibo post on June 10. “Some movie companies are losing a million yuan ($141,540) a day, and a million employees working for them need to survive.”
Before being hit by the coronavirus outbreak, Bona had a banner year in 2019. As Variety noted, Bona was involved in three out of China’s top 10 highest-grossing films last year. It was also an equity investor in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which failed to get distribution in China due to what Chinese film regulators saw as a controversial portrayal of the martial arts hero Bruce Lee.
As a result of the coronavirus shutdown, China’s box office is expected to suffer a revenue loss of 30 billion yuan ($4.25 billion) this year, according to the National Film Administration. Meanwhile, Variety reported that more than 5,000 Chinese film and TV companies had canceled or revoked their business registrations as of April this year.
In the face of the coronavirus crisis, Bona imposed a 50% pay cut on its staff, but it didn’t lay off any of its employees, according to (in Chinese) the China News Weekly. Judging from some screenshots of Huang’s WeChat, which were shared by people close to him, Huang was calling for authorities’ permission to reopen movie theaters in all of his most recent posts before his suicide.
