According to entFilmbase’s China film box office statistics, the mainland box office gross in the 1st week of 2013(Dec 31, 2012-Jan 6, 2013) was ￥549.02 million (about 87.08 million USD), down 13% from the previous week and boomed 129% compared to the same time last year. Moviegoers this week totaled 15.5 million.
After sitting on the top spot for three weeks, domestic low-budget comedy Lost in Thailand were finally edged out by Jackie Chan’s 101st movie CZ 12. CZ 12 hauled in ￥235.1 million over the past seven days, for a new cume of ￥720.12 million. Lost in Thailand added another strong ￥200.3 million for a new total revenue of ￥1.15 billion. Produced by Bona Film Group, The Last Tycoon earned 52.7 million through last Sunday. As can be seen from the chart below, nine out of ten of the box office hits were domestic films, except the one named The Fierce Wife was made by Taiwan.
In 2012, China’s film market had witnessed an extraordinary year-on-year growth in both the number of new theatres and the national box office receipts. As of the opening of 2013, there was also a huge wave of moviegoers flushing into cinemas as a consequence of the three-day holiday starting from Dec. 31, 2012 to Jan. 2, 2013. Amazingly, the daily box office record remained over ￥100 million for five days (Dec. 30, 2012-Jan. 3, 2013), which signals that movie-watching has been an important way for the Chinese to enjoy their free time. As the holiday came to an end, the box office began to cool down a bit to a normal degree. After the Year-End movie season and New-Year movie season, the film market of Mainland China needs a rest.
A few low-budget flicks debuted this week, but they could not make a difference to the dominance of the top 4 box office winners. Lost in Thailand had sold more than 30 million tickets per day a week ago, and the number fell 20% as it had kept running for almost a whole month, but that was big enough to account for nearly 40% of the weekly admissions in total.
It was surprising to find out that Jackie Chan’s actioner CZ 12 grabbed the box office crown last week. Alongside the high admissions per screen, the high ticket price (average price: ￥40 for CZ 12 and ￥33 for Lost in Thailand) contributed pretty much to large number of its revenue. Through Monday this week (Jan. 7), the Huayi Bros. production grossed ￥732 million, which already overtook Painted Skin: The Resurrection, the old box office silver medal winner among domestic movies. As Wong Kai-wai’s action-biopic The Grandmaster will be released on Jan. 8, the competition might keep on being fierce for the upcoming week.
The Chinese actor's directorial debut, Lost in Thailand, had grossed an incredible 1.17 billion as of Tuesday (Jan. 8), beating Titanic and becoming the highest-grossing 2012 release in China. The homemade flick has become a phenomenon now, causing massive debates among moviegoers and even filmmakers themselves. As director Xu Zheng said, the film is good, but not as good as the huge box office shown. Another small-budget title Forever Love performed not bad during the past week. Released on a special day which sounds like “Love you forever” in Chinese, the romance movie aimed at certain kind of audiences and was successful.
Next week (Jan. 7-13, 2013), six films will start their theatrical runs in the Chinese mainland. Wong Kar-wai’s much-anticipated historical martial arts epic, The Grandmaster, which will open on Jan. 8. Taiwan’s romance production Cha Cha for Twins will be released on Jan. 10 and domestic flick Love in Time, Born to Love You, Lemon and actioner Desperate Rescue will hit the cinemas one by one.
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