According to China film box office statistics by enbase, mainland box office gross in week 53 (Dec 26, 2011- Jan 1, 2012) reached $55.37 million, showing 24% box office down from last month, also 7% drop compared to the same time last year. Moviegoers in this week counted as 9.04 million in total, 16% slumped compared to last month.
"The Flowers of War” stayed at the top of the box office again this New Year holiday week, taking in $20.86 million over seven days. This highest-ever-budget movie has already become the top grossing Chinese film of 2011. And just like last week, "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" was No. 2 in mainland and "Dear Enemy" was No. 3. "Swords" grossed $18.46 million in its third week run, while "Dear Enemy" took $6.5 million over its second week of release. With the lead of top 3, which are completely local films, the domestic films enjoyed 83% of the market share.
Even with an impressive turnout for two hit “The Flowers of War” and “Flying Swords of Dragon Gate”, box office was down year-over-year at the same time slot previous year. Total gross in this week came in at roughly $ 55.37 million, which is a 7 percent decline from last year. Even worse, when accounting for the inflated ticket prices, estimated attendance at this time slot is 1 million lower than that of previous year.
There is no doubt that Zhang Yimou's “The Flowers of War” is doing big business in mainland market, where it's already become the top grossing Chinese film of 2011. ”Flowers” made $20.86 million in mainland this week. By Sunday night, the war epic had taken $77.19 million after three week run in cinemas. It widened its lead on Xu Hark's 3-D action-fantasy “Flying Swords of Dragon Gate” that made $18.46 million in the same time frame for a current gross of $68.55 million. By comparison, in its third week, Jiang Wen's “Let the Bullets Fly” (2010) had taken $24.37 million. So far, "Bullets” (total gross of $101.37 million) is China's highest grossing local film.
"Dear Enemy” maintained the third place, adding $6.5 million for mainland total of $13.06 million. It now appears like “Enemy” will easily cross the line of RMB 1billion in close future. Starring with Rene Liu, Tang Wei and Cecilia Cheung, the automobile racing movie “Speed Angel” debuted $2.38 million over its six days run, a disappointing performance for its distribution Enlight Pictures. Due to their poor market campaigns of “The Treaty of Double Bed” and “Xinyue Meiying”, these two movies suffered a very low attendance and just took in $0.15 million and $0.04 million respectively this week.
In terms of screening time schedule, the two most serious rivals “The Flowers of War” “Flying Swords of Dragon Gate” simultaneously lost approximately 23% of market share after their third week of release. According to the data issued by enbase, Zhang’ “Flowers” and Xu’ “Swords” enjoyed 27% and 24% of screening time slot respectively. Xu Jinglei’s “Dear Enemy” took 15% of screening time slot, a slight increase comparing to 10% of that of its last week. New release film “The Allure of Tears”held 10% of screening time slot. Due to the fresh one’s low audience attendance, box office income of “Allure” in this week has not even reached half of “Enemy”’s gross.
In the upcoming Week (02-08, Jan 2012), films as below are set to be released in mainland China. Among these five fresh movies, Giddens “You Are the Apple of My Eye” is the most expected one since its good reputation and outstanding performance both in Hong Kong and Taiwan that it had already broke the record as the highest grossing Chinese-language film ever released in Hong Kong. “Apple” is also the second-highest grossing local film in Taiwan in 2011.
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