According to enbase’s China film box office statistics, mainland box office gross in the ninth week (Feb 27- Mar 04, 2012) reached $32.81 million, down12% from last week. Moviegoers this week totaled $5.96 million, a slump of 11% when compared to last week.
"War Horse” debuted at the top spot with a massive $8.82 million over 6 days. “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” dropped into second place with a weekly gross of $6.14 million. “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” which has now been playing for 37 days in the mainland market, has benefited from strong performances in past weeks, and will likely continue to perform well into next week. This week it came in third place, adding $3.8 million for a total of $99.79 million. This week, mainland box office was dominated by Hollywood titles with the five highest-performing films all coming from tinseltown. These five Hollywood films accounted for 73% of the mainland box office in the ninth week of 2012, up a slight 3% compared to last week’s mainland Hollywood film performance.
As the industry enters the spring movie season, mainland market capacity continues to grow. The number of films released this week is twice the number that was released during the same time last year. Lead by a bunch of Hollywood blockbusters like“Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” and “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island”, weekly box office of this week is up 71% compared to the same time of last year.
After four weeks in release “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” still remained a strong box office draw bringing in $6.14 million for a second place finish. Third place “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol”added $3.8 million to its mainland total of $99.79 million over 37 days release. Steven Spielberg’s“War Horse” hit theaters on Tuesday, debuting to a mild $8.82 million in its first week. Comparing to the outstanding opening week performances of “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” and “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island”, "War Horse” failed to meet the high expectations placed upon it, especially considering that it had been nominated for six Oscar awards this year.
"Conan the Barbarian”, a remake of the 1984 film “Conan the Destroyer” which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, was marked by underwhelming performance in its first four days at the mainland box office. But the situation changed on Thursday when the film suddenly began to surge. Benefiting from generous screening times and an action-driven plot, “Conan the Barbarian”scored $3.11 million this week, followed by “Happy Feet 2” which dropped to the fifth spot with $2.21 million.
On the local film side, “Love”contributed $1.61 million in box office tickets this week to its total $20.55 million through 21 days in release. Its expected mainland gross should top $24 million. Staring Richie Ren and Tengger, “Tales of Two Cities” grossed $1.48 million in this week. "Fengkuang De Chunzei”the latest entry of “Fengkuang” franchise, came in third on the domestic films chart this week with$1.34 million. “I Do”made a disappointing $0.81 million this week. Its predicted to cross $12.69 million in the next week.
According to enbase statistics,“War Horse” ruled the screening times chart of this week, enjoying 18% of market share in terms of number of screenings. “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” took an additional 14%. “Happy Feet 2” and “Conan the Barbarian” enjoyed roughly the same number of screens though their trends were the opposite of each other. While “Happy Feet 2”suffered poor audience attendance that caused a slump in its number of screenings as the week went on, “Conan the Barbarian” took over the vacant screening times as audiences responded favorably. “Conan” screening numbers even went on to surpass those of “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” by Thursday.
Next week (Mar.05- 11,2012), the films below are set to be released in mainland China. March 8 is International Women’s Day, and cinemas will strive to use this holiday to appeal to the hearts of women and their wallets.Lead by the Golden Horse Prize winning film “A Simple Life”, 10 fresh films including a documentary “The Somalia Truth” will hit theaters next week.
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enbase is an up-to-date database system developed by EntGroup. It contains detailed information on more than 300,000 films and television shows, including information on distributors, directors, cast, etc as well as film box-office records and audience attendance rates.
