China’s Box Office Still Blazing: Weekly Gross Up 163% Over Same Frame in 2012
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By Robert Cain for China Film Biz
February 26, 2013
Although business at China's movie theaters cooled off a bit last week compared to the prior week's scorching, record-crushing $ 135 million gross, attendance was still hot enough to make it the second best week in Chinese cinema history. The $ 95 million cume for week 8 was 163 percent higher than the total for the same session in 2012.
Journey to the West led the way with $ 54 million, the second best second-week showing ever for a Chinese film, after Lost in Thailand's Christmas week bonanza. At $ 160+ million and going strong as of this writing, Journey to the West looks certain to knock Lost in Thailand off its throne as the highest grossing Chinese film ever.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, took second place with an $ 18.5 million 3-day weekend. Some have suggested to me that The Hobbit's underperformance in China is attributable to the fact that few there have read J.R.R Tolkien's classic Middle Earth novels, but this explanation ignores the fact that The Lord of the Rings was a big hit in China back in 2004, placing fourth among all theatrical releases and first among foreign films that year.
The romance Say Yes came in third with a so-so $ 8.4 million, off by 56 percent from its first week's tally. Jack Reacher was just behind with a tad under $ 8.3 million, bumping its 9-day cume to a modest $ 13.3 million.
Cloud Atlas finished the week with $ 26.3 million , just shy of its final North American gross of $ 27 million. With just a few more days before its run ends, it will be a close call as to whether the film will gross more in China than stateside. Either way, Cloud Atlas will wind up earning a remarkable 20 percent of its worldwide total in Chinese multiplexes.
Year-to-date, PRC box office receipts are up a scorching 43 percent over the same period last year. U.S. films account for just 16 percent of the total, compared to 47 percent during the same period in 2012. Even more worrisome is Hollywood's market share tumble from 70 percent in the month of February, 2012, to 15 percent during February of this year. Whereas SARFT and the Chinese film authorities reacted to Hollywood's dominance last year by imposing an extended summer blackout, they now appear to be loosening their grip a little, reportedly granting a coveted day-and-date release slot in late March to GI Joe: Retaliation.
The next U.S. film to release in China will be multiple Oscar winner Les Miserables, on Thursday the 28th..Musicals don't usually attract much business in China–so I doubt Universal will be expecting much business here.
The next two major releases after Les Miz, A Good Day to Die Hard and Oz: The Great and Powerful, both set to release in mid-March, will serve as revealing litmus tests. Die Hard would normally be expected to attract China's huge action fan audience, but as we've seen, American action tent-poles have underperformed of late in the Middle Kingdom. As a 3D fantasy, Sam Raimi's Oz is also of a genre that traditionally excels in China, Hobbit notwithstanding. The classic 1939 MGM favorite is well-known and well-liked there. If any one movie can turn things around for Hollywood, I'm betting Oz will be it.
Robert Cain is a producer and entertainment industry consultant who has been doing business in China since 1987. He can be reached at rob@pacificbridgepics.com and at www.pacificbridgepics.com.
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