After pulling in $33.5M across five days of previews at the Chinese box office, local war epic The Eight Hundred overwhelmingly stormed theaters today, its first official day of release. Adding roughly $20M across the country on Friday — the biggest single-day box office since cinemas resumed operations — the Middle Kingdom cume is now
China
EXCLUSIVE: As the rolling process of cinema reopenings continues across various markets, IMAX has recently enjoyed strong grosses with local-language movies in Asia as well as the reissue of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar in China. This week in the Middle Kingdom, it’s set to have a particularly vibrant frame with war epic The Eight Hundred. Already,
It’s not so much mischief managed as it’s magic managed: Warner Bros’ reissue of Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone has become the second film in the franchise to cross $1B worldwide. The film, originally released in 2001, counts a global cume of $1,001,260,000 after debuting in a remastered 4K 3D version in China this
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone worked some magic in China on Friday with Warner Bros’ 3D reissue conjuring $4.6M. This is by far the biggesst single-day gross since cinemas resumed operations, overtaking the opening of WB’s earlier re-release of Chirstopher Nolan’s Interstellar by 66% (though that film bowed on a Sunday). Overall, China’s fourth
A participant prepares for a Pride Run, an event of ShanghaiPRIDE. (JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty) The oldest and largest Pride festival in China, ShanghaiPRIDE, has announced that it is “taking a break from scheduling any future events”, in a huge blow to the country’s LGBT+ community. When ShanghaiPRIDE began in 2009 there were 3,000 people in attendance,
China’s third Friday back to the movies scored a slight increase on last week’s comparable day at $4.38M. It’s short of the $7.6M generated last Sunday which was boosted by Warner Bros’ reissue of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, but still a jump on last Friday, while midweeks were solid. Play today was led by DreamWorks/Amblin/Universal’s 1917
SATURDAY UPDATE: Since cinemas reopened in China’s low-risk areas on July 20, the market today had its biggest day yet. Box office was $5.74M (RMB 40M) overall for the day, according to Maoyan figures. That reps a 38% jump from Friday. After leading last weekend and the midweeks, then dropping to No. 2 on Friday,
China’s second Friday with cinemas back to business in low-risk areas rang up another $4M at local turnstiles, a 39% increase versus the same day last week. About 60% of movie theaters are now operating, with capacity limits and social distancing still in place, so all numbers are to be taken with a grain of
On their first Friday back to operations, Chinese cinemas did roughly $2.92M worth of box office business — more than tripling Thursday’s figures and making a sizable jump from Monday when theaters opened to about $501K in low-risk areas across the country. There was growth throughout the midweeks which is encouraging since less than 40%
EXCLUSIVE: Lots of movement on the international box office front this past weekend, and into the beginning of the week. Korean zombie sequel Peninsula, as we reported Sunday, made a meal of five overseas markets with a $21M Wednesday-Sunday frame. That’s the best start we’ve seen since March when Onward opened to $28M in 47
As expected, Chinese authorities have given the go-ahead for cinemas in Beijing to reopen this coming Friday. That’s also when the first new Hollywood titles will hit the market, including Dolittle and Bloodshot. Only cinemas in the capital’s low-risk areas will be able to resume operations — and with strict sanitary measures in place, state
As Chinese cinemas began the reopening process today, box office crossed $472K by 8PM local. Maoyan’s real-time ticketing platform reports that play is led by new entry A First Farewell at around $184K. Following it is the re-issue of Christmas title Sheep Without A Shepherd at about $80K and Disney/Pixar’s Coco in 3rd with just
EXCLUSIVE: Wasting no time as cinemas prepare to reopen beginning next week in most of China, a first batch of titles due for release has been identified. Universal’s Dolittle has been granted a July 24 date while we understand that Sony’s Bloodshot, handled locally by Bona Film, will also go out that same day. This
In the wake of the China Film Administration announcing yesterday the reopening of cinemas on July 20, there’s been several questions as to what China is determining to be a low or high risk COVID-19 area. We heard from a number of industry sources today that the majority of the country’s exhibitors can reopen except
BREAKING: Those theaters in low risk areas in China “can resume business in an orderly manner” as early as Monday, July 20, the China Film Administration announced in a recent notice. There were rumblings in foreign distribution that China would start reopening on this date, however, sources weren’t so sure whether that meant simply that
EXCLUSIVE: While many offshore markets are showing increasing signs of life as cinemas return, there are still several question marks surrounding when the majority of the world gets back to the theatrical business – chief among them for the international box office is China. There has been some chatter that Middle Kingdom movie theaters may
A gay lecturer from China has revealed that his academic career was left in tatters in his home country after he hosted classes on sexuality. Cui Le was a linguistics lecturer at the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in the southern Chinese province of Guangzhou when the backlash began, the South China Morning Post reports.
Chinese authorities will allow further leisure venues, including cinemas, to gradually re-open now that the coronavirus pandemic has largely been controlled in the country, the top administrative body said on Friday. This comes after movie theaters were shuttered nationwide in January, ultimately dealing a $2.5B+ loss to the box office in just the first quarter.
Undeterred by the current state of the industry, and despite posting a $668M profit loss for 2019, China’s Wanda Film is betting big on the local theatrical business. The division of Dalian Wanda Group said that it intends to spend about $431M raised in a non-public offering of A shares to build more Middle Kingdom
From Saturday, a first batch of 205 cinemas will re-open for business in Shanghai. This follows last weekend’s opening of 500+ theaters in other China provinces, though Shanghai becomes the first tier one city to turn the lights back on as the coronavirus reportedly abates in the Middle Kingdom. The Shanghai municipal government made the
As the coronavirus reportedly continues to abate in China, film authorities are taking an everything old is new again approach. As of last count there were about 500 movie theaters open in the world’s second biggest box office hub. And as this expands, some of them may soon be playing such favorites as the Avengers
As the number of new cases of the coronavirus shows signs of abating in China, a smattering of cinemas re-opened in a handful of provinces across the country this weekend. On Friday, there were 486 movie theaters back at work, while Saturday the total was upped to 507, local reports say. This reps just 4.5%
We are hearing from U.S. industry sources as well as those on the ground in the PRC that the offices of China Film Group in Shanghai and those of China’s Film Bureau are re-opened for business, a sign that the country’s exhibition is on its way to a gradual recovery after being shuttered since the
There may be a glimmer of hope —may being the operative word– in regards to China’s movie theaters re-opening after being shuttered since the Lunar New Year holiday over the COVID-19 outbreak. We hear from multiple sources, both industry and on-the-ground in the PRC, that China Film Group, the state-owned film enterprise that oversees theaters,
Amid the coronavirus epidemic, organizers of the Beijing International Film Festival have indefinitely postponed the event which was set to take place from April 19-26 this year. The move was expected as China has now recorded 80,735 cases of Covid-19 and 3,119 deaths. However, the National Health Commission said there were only 40 new cases
“The impact in 2020 from Corvid-19 (coronavirus) on the motion picture business cannot be overstated,” a finance source recently told us. That’s as the closure of cinemas in China alone is approaching a loss of $2B to the global box office, while the disease has now seen spikes in Korea and Italy. What looked in
Paramount’s China office has announced that it’s pushing the release date of Sonic the Hedgehog due to the coronavirus outbreak with a future date TBD. The Jeff Fowler-directed movie recently clocked past $203M WW this past weekend. Note, no other Hollywood movies in the PRC have been officially dated or moved in the wake of the coronavirus