According to China film box office statistics by enbase, mainland box office gross in the first week (Jan 2, 2012- Jan 8, 2012) reached $37.81 million, showing 32% box office down from last month. Moviegoers in this week counted as 6.5 million in total, 28% slumped compared to last month.
Zhang Yimou’s “The Flowers of War” and Tsui Xu’s “The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate” dominated the mainland box office for another week. The ambitious historical epic “Flowers” had no problem leading the box office chart for the fourth week in a row, adding $11.31 million for mainland total of $88.50 million, 46% slumped from last week.“Swords”, the first 3D effective martial-film released in China starring Jet Li, grossed $10.82 million last week, a 41% drop comparing to last week. Its total now stands at $79.38 million after four weeks run, also a break to the box office income record of 500 million in the currency RMB. The most anticipated new-released movie “You Are the Apple of My Eye” is now deemed as a dark hours, earning a strong $4.35 million through its three days debut. Domestic films make up 75 percent of the total revenue in mainland market.
Even with a two-day New Year Holiday, box office was 30% down comparing to last week. Though box office income is 36% up year-over-year at the same time slot previous year, mainland is expected to be even larger film market space considering of more than 800 new theaters and over 3000 screens established in 2011.“Flowers” and “Swords” maintained the top one spot with $11.31 million and the second spot with $10.82 million respectively over their fourth week run in a row.
Last Friday released “You Are the Apple of My Eye”, a starless film directed by Taiwanese on-line novelist Giddens, ranked first among five new-released films last week with a debut to $4.35 million over three days run. In terms of box office high profit, “Apple” is deemed same successful as “Love is Not Blind (2011), another romantic comedy that cost less than 10 million RMB to make but grossed 352.18 million RMB ($55.41 million). These two on-line novel adapted movies have some features in common: they both have a solid book funs; they both feature simple and real portrayal of the lives of young people, in which way audiences could be moved. But damaged from the rampant spread of its pirated products which has started off before its debut in movie theaters, “Apple” failed to reach the same outstanding box office result as it got in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Xu Jinglei’s “Dear Enemy” taking in $3.48 million for a two weeks running total of $16.53 million (a surpass of 100 million RMB). Not as impressive as “Apple”, another Taiwanese movie “The Killer Who Never Kills”, which is also written by on-line novelist Giddens just debuted a disappointing $0.54 million in its first week. “The Allure of Tears” made $0.76 million for a current gross of $6.70 million over three week run.
In terms of screening time schedule, “Flowers” and “Swords” continued to rule the market share, enjoying 22% and 21% screening time slot respectively after their fourth week of release. Benefiting from the outstanding performance both in Hong Kong and Taiwan, most anticipated fresh movie “Apple” took 10% screening time schedule since its released last Friday. “Dear Enemy” underperformed this week with just 10% screening time slot, dropping 15% of that comparing its last week’s 15%.
In the upcoming Week (09-15, Jan 2012), films as below are set to be released in mainland China. Among these, the most expected films for next week at the box office seemed to be neatly wrapped up two new hits “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” and “The Great Magician”. The former is the first revenue-sharing basis imported movie in 2012 and it had solid result in western territories. “Magician”, directed by Derek Yee has an all-star starring including Tony Leung, Zhou Xun and Sean Lau.
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