by Robert Cain for China Film Biz
Chinese movie star salaries have been skyrocketing lately; some have seen their fees double from one picture to the next.
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By Robert Cain for China Film Biz
January 14, 2015
The first full box office week of 2015 saw two studio film releases that spanned the spectrum of rankings from top to bottom: Fox’s Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb snagged the top spot with $26.5 million, while Sony’s Annie came in last among new releases with a hair-curling $355,000, possibly the poorest opening ever for a major Hollywood studio film in China.
Both Museum and Miss Granny, the Chinese remake of the Korean comedy hit of the same name (수상한 그녀) knocked Tsui Hark’s The Taking of Tiger Mountain out of the number one spot, which it had occupied for the previous two weeks. With its $132 million total as of this writing, Tiger Mountain is now the 6th highest grossing Chinese language film of all time, and the 3rd biggest 2014 release after Breakup Buddies and The Monkey King.
Night at the Museum’s take is especially impressive considering that this is the first installment of that franchise to enjoy a PRC theatrical release. Its opening week numbers indicate a projected final gross north of $60 million, which should put it around the average for studio releases this year.
Annie, on the other hand, comes as a big surprise to the downside. Even taking into account its relatively modest release by China Film Group and Huaxia, with just 14,700 screenings during its first 3 days, the numbers are still mysteriously low, at just $23 per screening. By comparison, Khumba, a South African family animated film in its second week of release, earned more than double Annie’s average with $51 per screening. One wonders why Sony chose to use up a valuable release slot for the film, and even more, whether CFG and Huaxia put any effort into opening the picture.
Overall box office was strong at $80.4 million up 45 percent over the same frame in 2014. 2015 is off to a strong start after the blackout neutered December, with the first two weeks of this year running 46 percent ahead of last year.
Coming this week are the Jeff Bridges-Julianne Moore adventure vehicle The Seventh Son and the 3D reissue of Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle on January 16th, followed by The Hobbit: There and Back Again, which should clear at least $100 million if prior trends hold.
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 http://www.pacificbridgepics.com.
Follow me on Twitter @robcain or Sina Weibo @robcain, or connect with me on LinkedIn.
By Robert Cain for China Film Biz
February 13, 2013
With its $12.8 million Chinese New Year’s day debut, Stephen Chow’s Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons set a new record last week for the biggest opening day gross ever for a local Chinese film. The Huayi Brothers/Village Roadshow Pictures fantasy-action-comedy ranks second only to Transformers 3 for the all-time biggest opening day in Chinese box office history.
Journey blew past holdovers Cloud Atlas and Skyfall to take first place for the week of February 4-10 even though it had only one day, Sunday, to beat all its competitors for the weekly box office crown. I believe this is the first time such a feat has ever been accomplished in China.
Including its results through February 13th the film has now cumed a massive $50 million in its first four days. On Thursday Journey can look forward to a robust Valentine’s Day, a major date night holiday in China, when it could well set a record for the biggest single-day gross ever. If word of mouth doesn’t slow down attendance the picture will match or even surpass Titanic 3D’s $74 million single-week record. A $150 million total cume now looks increasingly likely, and there’s a reasonably good chance at this point that Journey will even surpass Lost in Thailand‘s all-time record gross of $201 million.
At $45 million, aggregate box office for all films last week was down about 8 percent from the same period last year, when Mission Impossible 4 and Journey: The Mysterious Island led the way to a $49 million weekly cume.
Cloud Atlas boosted its cume to a healthy $21.6 million after 11 days, which now puts it in the rare company of only a handful of non-Chinese films that have earned 20 percent or more of their global box office revenue in China. Skyfall notched another $6.4 million to extend its cume to $58 million.
The next Hollywood films to open in China will be Paramount’s Jack Reacher on February 16th and New Line/MGM’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which will bow on February 22nd. It will be an interesting test to see how well both films stand up to the Journey in the West juggernaut. Although Hobbit has had an extraordinary global run and is nearing a $1 billion worldwide gross, it is by no means a certainty that it will enjoy equally robust business in the PRC.
Special mention must be made that an international production company, Village Roadshow Pictures Asia, played a key role in investing in and supporting Journey to the West‘s success. This kind of strategic engagement in Chinese language feature films is precisely what Hollywood and other foreign players must pursue if they hope to remain relevant in China.
For the past few years I’ve suggested that English language Hollywood films would soon be eclipsed in China by local language productions. That moment has arrived. With relatively few exceptions, Chinese movies will increasingly rule at China’s multiplexes. For those studios that haven’t made a commitment like Village Roadshow and Fox have to local language Chinese productions, the window is closing on their ability to participate meaningfully in China’s rise to its inevitable position of global primacy in the movie business. For those who still wish to enter the Middle Kingdom in a strategic and sustainably competitive manner, my colleagues and I at Pacific Bridge Pictures stand ready to assist.
[Correction: In a previous version of this story I mistakenly attributed the international co-financing and co-producing role in Journey to the West to the wrong company. I had misinterpreted a conversation I had with Fox International Pictures (FIP)–my mistake, not theirs–and cited that company as a financing and producing partner in the film when I should have properly cited Village Roadshow Pictures Asia instead. FIP’s role with the picture is as a distributor in Taiwan and Malaysia. Thanks to Village Roadshow for kindly pointing out my error. It was an honest mistake; rest assured that I have reprimanded my entire research and fact-checking staff, and I am flagellating myself as I write this. Humble apologies all around.]
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.
Follow me on Twitter @robcain or Sina Weibo @robcain, or connect with me on LinkedIn.
By Robert Cain for China Film Biz
February 9, 2013
Happy New Year, dear reader! May the Year of the Snake bring you much prosperity and happiness.
Theaters went dark for much of the day on Saturday as China’s population turned its attention to New Year’s fireworks and lion dances.
The multiplexes reopened on Sunday with high expectations—and a massive screen count—for the release of Stephen Chow’s new action comedy, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. Based on the Ming dynasty literary classic commonly known as “Monkey” in the west, the film is a silly, slapstick parody with director Chow’s usual collection of rapid-fire gags.
Chow’s prior films Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer were major hits both in Greater China and abroad, due largely to Chow’s zany energy as a leading man. This time, however, Chow will be absent from the on-screen action, leaving a hole that will be difficult to fill. Whether this picture works in pleasing audiences—reviews so far have been mixed—it is sure to open big, as it has reportedly racked up very strong presales. Early word is that it cracked the $10 million mark on its opening day. Don’t be surprised if it goes well over $100 million in the next few weeks.
To accommodate the opening of Journey and four additional films on Sunday, Cloud Atlas and Skyfall will have to relinquish most of their screens, which will effectively slow the remainder of their China runs down to a trickle. Skyfall, as I previously noted, will wind up with $60 million or a bit more. Cloud Atlas, which crossed the $21 million mark on Saturday, could still possibly surpass its U.S. total of $27 million. While $27 million is only a middling tally for a foreign film in China these days, this would nevertheless represent some 25 percent of the movie’s worldwide gross, which would set a new record for a foreign film release in the PRC. The previous record-holder, The Mechanic, earned roughly 22 percent of its worldwide revenue in China in 2012.
Expect these percentages to keep climbing as China accounts for an ever-increasing share of the global box office. Chinese moviegoers’ tastes, which are proving to be very different than those of American audiences, will exert a steadily increasing influence over what movies get made and whom they target.
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.
Follow me on Twitter @robcain or Sina Weibo @robcain, or connect with me on LinkedIn.
By Robert Cain for China Film Biz
February 5, 2013
China may not completely save Cloud Atlas from sinking in red ink, but it will definitely keep the $100 million picture alive and afloat for a little longer. In its first four days in the PRC the film has grossed $11 million, a 14 percent boost to its anemic $78 million worldwide total.
Word-of-mouth for the Wachowski/Tykwer directed sci-fi/fantasy flick has been reasonably good in the Middle Kingdom, despite a reported 40 minutes of footage cuts at the hands of the SARFT censors. If it gets a pre-holiday boost, and if it doesn’t get clobbered by the New Year’s day release of Stephen Chow’s highly anticipated Journey to the West, Cloud Atlas’ gross in China could possibly surpass its $27 million North American total.
Overall it was a decent week at the multiplexes, with several family-oriented releases enjoying solid debuts. As I’ve noted previously, Chinese audience tastes appear to be broadening, and for the first time since October nine films grossed 8 million RMB ($1.3 mm) or more in the same week.
Still, aggregate weekly revenues of $53 million were down 12 percent from the same frame in 2012, when ticket sales exceeded $60 million. The culprit in the drop-off from last year is Skyfall, which continues to lag far behind last January’s box office champ Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. I won’t rebuke those who doubted my accurate call regarding Skyfall’s under-performance after the first day of its release in the PRC, but I will say–to paraphrase Kevin Spacey’s line in the new “House of Cards” TV series–“After 20 years in China’s film biz, I can smell which way the wind is blowing.”
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.
By Robert Cain
November 29, 2011
Hong Kong writer-director Jeffrey Lau’s comedy East Meets West led the Chinese box office last week with an $8.1 million gross, marking the third straight week that Chinese language films have taken the top spot in China. East edged out homegrown phenomenon Love is Not Blind, which took in $7.2 million to up its 20 day cumulative gross to $50.4 million.
All told, the top 10 films took in $34 million, a 26 percent improvement over the same frame last year. Aside from East, new releases failed to generate much interest, with Tropa de Elite 2 (the first Brazilian release in China this year) managing just $1.55 million in ticket sales, and the China/Hong Kong horror co-pro Night Mare failing just short of $1 million. Aside from the moderate summer success of Mysterious Island with its $13.6 million tally, the horror genre still has yet to prove itself with modern Chinese audiences.
East Meets West marks something of a return to form for Lau, whose collaborations with Wong Kar-wai (Chinese Odyssey 2002) and Stephen Chow (Kung Fu Hustle) early this decade were critical and commercial successes. After a few missteps with recent films like Metallic Attraction: Kung-Fu Cyborg, Lau showed with East Meets West that he still has some chops. As one reviewer put it, “The film is relentlessly energetic and brimming with enthusiasm.”
U.S.-made films continued to generate solid, if not blockbuster, business, with The Adventures of Tintin crossing the $15 million threshold, the 32nd film to reach this level in 2011. Rise of the Planet of the Apes wound up its run just shy of $31 million, making it the 13th highest grossing film in China so far this year. With no major Hollywood releases slated at the Chinese box office this week, it’s a near certainty that Chinese language films will rule the box office for the fourth week in a row.
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 