Follow me on Twitter @robcain or Sina Weibo @robcain, or connect with me on LinkedIn.
By Robert Cain for China Film Biz
July 12, 2013
The Will Smith-M. Night Shyamalan sci-fi /adventure After Earth arrives in Chinese theaters today with high hopes for a ‘do-over’ after its weak opening in the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the world. With its reported $135 million production budget and $100 million more in marketing costs, the Relativity Media/Overbrook Entertainment flop needs big China numbers if it is to recover from the financial crater it has dug for its investors.
A China box office recovery scenario has its precedents, as Chinese audiences often go against the global tide. Some stateside under-performers enjoy surprisingly big results in China; Battleship and John Carter, for example, ginned up China grosses of $50 million and $42 million respectively, accounting for 15 percent and more of their worldwide theatrical totals. The reverse is often true as well, as recent releases like Django Unchained, The Artist, and Les Miserables have left Chinese audiences cold and earned 2 percent or less of their worldwide revenues there.
Early reports have After Earth winning the PRC box office race on Friday, beating The Rooftop, the romantic musical starring, written and directed by, and featuring the music of Taiwanese multi-talent Jay Chou (The Viral Factor, The Green Hornet). Rooftop opened to an excellent $2.6 million total on Thursday, but suffered on Friday due to competition from After Earth, which took in a projected $4.1 million, including Thursday’s midnight grosses.
The week ending July 7th was a decent, if somewhat uneventful one at the theaters. Tiny Times continued to dominate the field, taking another $24.4 million out of the nationwide total of $65.3 million. As of today the youth-oriented romance has extended its gross to $75 million, which, believe it or not, is considered a disappointment by its producers and distributor Le Vision. The film has been blasted by some of the worst reviews and most scathing weibo criticism in recent memory. Le Vision has responded by moving up the sequel, Tiny Times 2, from December to August 9th, perhaps, in the words of my Chinese correspondent Firedeep, to “cook another meal while the pot is still hot.” The August date will be a competitive one, but December will be even more so, and Le Vision may have lost its nerve about facing the tough December field with such a critically panned franchise.
Last week also saw the opening of Andy Lau’s Blind Detective with a $13.7 million bow, and the winding down of Man of Steel, which has surpassed Skyfall to become the third highest-grossing American film in China this year. Man of Steel has collected just over $62 million to date and will end up around $63 million. And as we previously noted, the U.S.-China co-pro Man of Tai Chi fell flat with just $2.9 million in its opening weekend. That picture has cumed $4.1 million through its first 7 days and will probably fall short of $10 million over its PRC run.
Looking ahead to next week, on Thursday July 18th Huayi Brothers will release the family comedy Mr. Go, a South Korea-China co-production about a Chinese teenaged girl who inherits a baseball playing gorilla and takes him to Korea where he becomes a star major league slugger. Silly? Perhaps. I expect it will do big business. Tune in here next week and let’s see what happens.
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.
chinafilmbiz 中国电影业务 
Hum… i think my movies taste is more Chinese than Occidental, Skyfall should have flopped hard worldwide for such a weak movie, hopefully it was not that successful in China. I’m not sure but i think chinese are less sensitive to marketing and hype and more word of mouth.