According to enBOtracker’s China film box office statistics, the mainland box office gross in the 48th week of 2012(November 26-December 2) reached $63.63 million, up 38% compared to the previous week and increased 84% from the same time last year. Moviegoers totaled 10.73 million, a 37% increase when compared to last week’s numbers.
The critically-acclaimed film Life of Pi remained top of the weekly box office chart, adding $26.93 million for a new total gross of $43.03 million. Holding two awards of RIFF, Feng Xiaogang’s Back to 1942 raked in $21.32 million through four days in release, which is good enough for the second place. Directed by famous indie Lu Chuan, The Last Supper brought in $6.21 million during the past seven days. This week, imported films accounted for 50.7% of the total box office revenue in Mainland China.
The upcoming festival season is always the busiest time for Chinese cinemas, as a great number of movies are specially timed for the Chinese New Year holidays in order to get a piece of the booming market. The fierce competition began when Back to 1942 (distributed by Huayi Bros.) and The Last Supper (distributed by Stellar Mega Films Limited) were released on the exactly same day of November 29.
The fight between film distributors and theatre circuits finally came to an end last month. In terms of Back to 1942, the box office profit share between them would be 43:57 if the total gross is less than 300 million RMB, 47:53 for the box office revenue over 800 million RMB, and 45:55 for the part in between. For the distributors of The Last Supper, the box office share would be 43% in the opening week, 41% in the second week and 39% from the third week on.
Background: On November 14, five top film distribution companies including China Film Group Corporation, Huayi Brothers Media Group, Bona Film Group, Stellar Mega Films Ltd., and Enlight Pictures Co., Ltd. asked theatres to raise their box office profit shares from 43 percent to 45 percent.
Prepared for twenty years, the novel adaption epic Back to 1942 eventually hit the Chinese cinemas. It portraits the great famine happened in 1942, while at that time the Chinese suffered from the war against Japan and the civil war among different parties in China. The situation in mainland film market soon was changed after Life of Pi’s emerging as the box office winner with good word of mouth.
According to enBOtracker’s statistics, Back to 1942 and The Last Supper debuted with $3.98 million and $1.27 million respectively. The good reputation among moviegoers contributed quite a lot to the B.O. rise of Back to 1942, and it easily earned $6.84 million on Saturday. The showings increased for Back to 1942 but decreased for The Last Supper, which made some room for Life of Pi since it had stopped its IMAX runs.
This week, IMAX B.O. accounted for 7% of the total gross of Back to 1942. Life of Pi stayed a big hit as a perfect integration of visual effects and Ang Lee’s thinking about human life. During the past week, 3D screens had been dominated by Life of Pi with 2012 sharing a limited part of it.
For the next Week (November 3-9), five movies are slated to open in mainland cinemas. The mainstream film The Flight of Youth is scheduled for November 5 and Korean thriller Deranged will debut on November 6. Smile Walked, My Sassy Hubby and Kill the Boss will start their theatrical runs on November 7.
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