According to enFilmbase’s China film box office statistics, the mainland box office gross in the 44th week of 2012(October 29-November 4) was $34.39 million, down 6% from the previous week. Moviegoers totaled 6.4 million, representing a decrease of 9% when compared to last week’s numbers.
The Bourne Legacy kept dominating the box office with a weekly gross of $11.51 million, for a new cume of $25.55 million. Taichi II followed with $9 million, while Total Recall earned $4.39 million during the past seven days. This week, imported films accounted for 58% of the total box office revenue in Mainland China.
After the National Day holiday, the Chinese mainland film market has endured a depressive period. This past week was no exception. As of Sunday, the total box office revenue in Mainland China barely slipped over 200 million RMB.
After hauling in $11.51 million over the past week, The Universal action- thriller The Bourne Legacy remained on top of the weekly box office chart. As we wrote in Week 43’s report, although it is a continuation of The Bourne franchise, this film expands beyond the original story, seems to have few things in common with the former three Bourne films. Compared to The Bourne Supremacy ($442 million worldwide) and The Bourne Ultimatum ($288 million worldwide), $120 million in North America and $265 million in total worldwide are definitely not in line with what Universal Pictures was expecting. Thanks to the loyal fan base and the magnificent visual effects, the Hollywood title succeeded in attracting a number of Chinese audiences into cinemas, regardless of word of mouth.
The sci-fi remake of Total Recall earned $4.39 million during the past seven days, easily moving past 100 million RMB before the end of its run. As of the end of last week, the total box office gross of Bait reached $24.67 million. The impressive performance of Bait should bring new co- production opportunities for filmmakers in Australia and China. Watch out, Australia may extend its “soft power” beyond its shores through movies.
After its 2D, 3D and IMAX release on the first day of this month, Taichi II brought in $9 million through last Sunday. It might be a domestic disappointment for Huayi Brothers Films Company, but Taichi III is still on the way and the expectations are palpable.
With the rescheduling of horror movies Zombies Reborn and Bleeding Mountain, the newly released Derrière les murs and Haunting Love performed well on Halloween, again emphasizing the success of date driven releases in the Mainland marketplace. On another note, the domestic feature film All for Love got $0.62 million over ten days in release.
According to enFilmbase statistics, The Bourne Legacy enjoyed 25% of mainland box office screenings, followed by Taichi II with 16% of the market share. Total Recall and Derrière les murs took up 13% and 9% respectively.
For the 45th week (Nov. 5-11), eleven films are slated to open in mainland cinemas. The most eye-catching and anticipated being Cold War which opens on November 8. Cold War is a Hong Kong gangster movie starring Tony Leung Ka Fai and Aaron Kwok, which has already gained good reputation among audiences. The other ten films that will hit theaters one after another include Wreck-It Ralph, Whoever, Julia’s Eyes, Tears in Heaven and Natural Lovers.
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