More than 300 cinemas across China have been punished for lying about box office receipts in what appears to be the first wave of an effort to clean up the film industry.
The targeting of cinemas for under-reporting proceeds comes as the government has been taking steps to boost China’s official box office takings, which were stagnant last year after a decade of galloping growth.
It was not clear how government investigators gathered evidence against the cinemas, which were ordered to return stolen proceeds to movie producers and distributors. Sixty-three were charged with fraud above Rmb1m ($145,000) in 2016 and forced to shut for at least 90 days.