According to enFilmbase’s China film box office statistics, the mainland box office gross in the 46th week of 2012(November 12-18) was $34.28 million, a 12% slump compared to the previous week. Moviegoers this week totaled 6.55 million, a 10% decrease when compared to last week’s numbers.
With a strong opening week, Hong Kong cops and robber thriller Cold War remained atop the weekly box office chart, collecting $14.63 million which accounted for 43% of the weekly overall gross. Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph emerged at the second place with $3.47 million and Rise of the Guardians earned $2.86 million during its opening three days.
Hong Kong filmmakers have been heading north since 2004, while at that time HK and Mainland came to an agreement named CEPA (Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement), especially after SARFT made a move by releasing a governmental profile “Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Management on Strengthening the Mainland and Hong Kong Film Industry Cooperation”.
With typical HK film’s artistic tastes and mature commercial operations, filmmaker from south soon got adapted to the mainland film market, constituting a HK-Mainland co-production trend. The trend has brought us many commercially successful movies, including Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, Red Cliff, Bodyguards and Assassins, Painted Skin and The Warlords, which are all among up-to-now box office Top 10 in mainland cinemas.
It always bothers filmmakers that how to make a balance between the story they want to tell and the box office receipts they want to get. Some of the HK-Mainland co-productions couldn’t avoid negative critics when they were too eager to share a piece of the market without any creative storylines. In 2002, Infernal Affairs made a new path for HK cops and robber thrillers. But it turns out to be uneasy to keep following the same way.
In terms of Cold War, it’s quite unusual when it quickly grossed $29.1 million after 11 days in release. Also produced by EDKO Film Limited and Irresistible Films, Night Fall (debuted on March 15, 2012) earned 48.78 million RMB through its whole theatrical run.
The good performance of Cold War indicates a sustainable way of HK-Mainland co-productions—put together the story and business operation experience of HK and the production and market of the Chinese mainland.
Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph added $3.47 million during the past week for a new total of $8.12 million. For domestic animators, pressures never disappear when it comes to compete with imported animations. A month in release, Taichi II and The Bourne Legacy both earned about $2.72 million in the past seven days. Though holding a good reputation widely, Oscar-winning Iranian film A Separation brought in $0.48 million in its opening six days. Domestic feature film Feng Shui earned 100 million RMB (about $0.16 million) in total.
For the 47th week (November 19-25), the films below will hit Chinese cinemas. 2012 3D along with Witness will be released on November 20. The Ang Lee film Life of Pi (IMAX and 3D) was scheduled for November 22, while Zombies Reborn and Sky Love will debut on November 23.
EntGroup is China’s leading entertainment research service center, focusing on the Chinese film and TV industry. We provide consulting services through comprehensive industry reports, customized research, and enbase to meet the requests concerning the Chinese entertainment business. EntGroup also operates an online platform for the entertainment industry at http://english.entgroup.cn/index.aspx
Enbase is an up-to-date database system developed by EntGroup. It contains detailed information on more than 300,000 films and television shows, including information on distributors, directors, cast, etc as well as film box office records and audience attendance rates.
For more information, please contact
Leon (President) Tel: 86-10-85899985-813 E-mail: leon@entgroup.cn;
Amy (Vice President) Tel: 86-10-85899985-847 E-mail: Amy@entgroup.cn
