Tag Archives: Aarif Lee

‘Cold War’ Off to Hot Start in China

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Follow me on Twitter @robcain or Sina Weibo @robcain, or connect with me on LinkedIn.By Robert Cain for China Film Biz

November 13, 2012

The Hong Kong cops and robber thriller Cold War got off to a hot start last week with a $15.4 million 4-day debut, enough to make it the 3rd best Chinese language opener of 2012 and 12th best among all PRC debuts this year. For first-time writer-director Sunny Luk and his all-star cast, Cold War warmed up what had been a moribund Chinese box office, marking the strongest opening for any film on the mainland since Expendables 2 knocked off $25 million in its opening weekend two months ago.

 

Produced and distributed by Bill Kong’s EDKO Films and starring Aaron Kwok, Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Byron Mann and Aarif Lee, Cold War will likely rack up another strong week before serious competition shows up at Chinese theaters, with the 3D re-release of 2012 arriving on November 20th and Life of Pi drifting in on the 22nd. Mega-director Feng Xiaogang’s Back to 1942 will almost certainly freeze out Cold War when it debuts on November 29th.

Reaching $31 million in its third week, The Bourne Legacy is now Universal’s 2nd best performer in China this year after the surprise hit Battleship. With a few more weeks left in its run, Bourne should easily surpass the low end of the $35 million to $50 million range that I had predicted for it.

Wreck-it Ralph’s 6-day opening tally of $5 million continues Disney/Pixar’s long string of misfires in China. The only consolation for Wreck-It Ralph is that it didn’t open as poorly as Brave, which managed a tepid $4.6 million over its entire PRC run back in June. Disney/Pixar’s last truly successful animation release in the PRC was more than two years ago when Toy Story 3 tallied a then respectable $16 million box office total over its 4-week run in 2010.

 

Bait 3D wound up its extraordinary run by biting off another $500,000 to finish at $25.7 million, by far the best performance ever in China for an Australian film, and the biggest gross for any non-Hollywood import.

Aggregate weekly national box office was $39.3 million, down 23 percent relative to the same week last year. But the year-to-date tally of $2.13 billion is already 3 percent ahead of the full-year total for 2011, and with 7 weeks left in the year, China is well on its way to setting yet another annual box office record.

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.

‘Bourne’ Again in China

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Follow me on Twitter @robcain or Sina Weibo @robcain, or connect with me on LinkedIn. 

By Robert Cain for China Film Biz

November 1, 2012

Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy surprised China box office watchers last week, outpacing most analysts’ estimates as it chased down a solid $14.4 million box office haul in its 4-day opening in the PRC. The debut ranked as the 13th best in China this year, just ahead of the $14 million March opening of John Carter, and just behind Journey 2’s $15.2 million February open.

With Bourne, foreign films sustained their post blackout dominance at China’s theaters, as the week’s top 5 slots were colonized by English language pictures—four of American origin and one Australian. Fully 88 percent of the frame’s revenues went to non-Chinese movies.

Cumulative weekly revenues were $36 million, 50 percent better than the total for the same week last year. Chinese audiences again demonstrated that, in the absence of SARFT manipulation, they strongly prefer imports over domestic pictures.

Hollywood films tend to wind up their runs in the PRC with 2.5 times to 3.5 times their opening 3-4 day weekend tallies, so Bourne will likely finish its run in the $35 million to $50 million range. China should ultimately account for 12 to 15 percent of the picture’s worldwide theatrical gross, which would be on par with several of the 2012’s best performing Hollywood releases in China, such as The Expendables 2, which earned about 15 percent of its worldwide total there, and Men in Black III, which took 13 percent of its worldwide gross there.

Considering that it released in the rest of the world nearly a year ago, the $3.6 million opening of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I was a reasonably good one and a credit to disrtibutor DMG’s strength in the market.

The next Hollywood film debut will be on November 6th, when Disney’s animated family feature Wreck-It Ralph opens as counter-programming against the star-studded Hong Kong cops and robbers thriller Cold War, which features Aaron Kwok, Tony Leung, Andy Lau and Dear Enemy’s Aarif Lee. No other film looks likely to make much of an impact through mid-November, so foreign films should enjoy several more good weeks in China until the December blackout begins.

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