China is rereleasing two of the biggest films in cinema history as it reopens its theaters for the first time since going into lockdown in January due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, box office juggernauts Avengers: Endgame and Avatar will both be rereleased in the country in the near future. Many of this year’s major films — including No Time to Die, Mulan and Wonder Woman 1984 — have been delayed by studios as Hollywood reckons with the pandemic.
All three of the other Avengers films, Christopher Nolan’s films Inception and Interstellar, and Chinese blockbusters Wolf Warrior 2, The Wandering Earth and Wolf Totem will also all be back in China cinemas.
Back in 2009, Avatar earned a then-record $202 million in China, while Avengers: Endgame took the top spot last year with $619 million last year. Worldwide, the two films are the highest-grossing blockbusters in history.
While China has not announced when the films will be back in theaters, a source told THR it will occur, “whenever the DCPs reach the cinemas.”
The lockdown in China began on Jan. 23 after the city of Wuhan became the epicenter for the COVID-19 outbreak, which began in late December.
At the outbreak’s peak in early February, China was seeing around 1,000 new cases of the virus a day.
But the outbreak in China has rapidly slowed down. On March 19, the country announced no new domestic cases of coronavirus for the first time since the outbreak began.
On Tuesday, Hubei provincial authorities announced on the government’s website that the strict quarantine measures on Wuhan, would be lifted on April 8.
China has slowly returned to normal life, and leaders have allowed workers in Hubei province to return to closed factories over the last week. Transportation in the city will resume and people in Wuhan will be allowed to leave the Hubei province next month, Bloomberg reported.
As of Thursday morning, March 26, there have been at least 81,285 cases of coronavirus in China and 3,287 deaths, according to the New York Times.
Italy has since surpassed China in total number of coronavirus-related deaths, while the United States currently has the third-most confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the world.
As information about the coronavirus pandemic rapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources from CDC, WHO, and local public health departments and visit our coronavirus hub.
Source: Read Full Article