According to entFilmbase’s China film box office statistics, the mainland box office gross in the 7th week of 2013(Feb. 11-17, 2013) was￥857million (about $138 million USD), up 205% compared to last week and increased126% y-o-y. Moviegoers this week totaled 22 million.
Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons raked in ￥566.74 million over seven days in release. As of February 19, the comedy made by famous Hong Kong film star Stephen Chow cumed more than ￥800 million. The second came Say Yes with ￥118.13 million, and the third was Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher with ￥31.51 million. Together earned ￥26.53 million in its opening six days. The cumulative gross of Cloud Atlas and Skyfall reached ￥158 million and ￥370 million separately.
Because of the Chinese Spring Festival holiday and Valentine’s Day, this week might be one of the busiest season for China’s film market. A great number of comedies and romantic titles flushed into the cinemas, such as Journey to the West, Say Yes and Better and Better. When holidays came to an end, workers began to go back to the first-tier cities, which led to the daily gross of ￥96 million on Sunday (Saturday:￥ 116 million), 13% lower than daily gross average of the Spring Festival movie season (￥122 million).
With a single-day gross of ￥124 million on Valentine’s Day, which smashed the ￥114 million record previously held by Transformers 3,Stephen Chow was on a rocket on his Journey to the West. It enjoyed 3,3000 times of showings on that day, 4% higher than its weekly average. However, busiest movie season instead of screenings was the key factor that led to the comedy’s strong performance, when cinema-goers’ attendance and admissions per screen both rose quickly. The admissions accounted for 56% of the daily total number. Moreover, higher ticket price also contributed a lot to the big revenue, as Journey to the West was released in 3D or IMAX 3D format. Some theatres raised the price for discounted tickets sold online and to couples. Consequently, its daily average ticket price was 16% higher than the weekly average.
For the next week (Feb. 18-24), four films will be released in the Chinese mainland. Directed by well-renowned Peter Jackson, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will take Chinese moviegoers back to the Middle Earth on Feb 22.On the same day, three films including Taiwan-mainland co-production Forever Love, local thriller Lift to Hell and domestic comedy Lucky Dog will start their theatrical runs.
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