Player is No 1
Hollywood sci-fi movie tops box office over holiday
A new box-office record was created during the recent Tomb Sweeping Day holiday in China, with more than 20 new movies contending for audiences’ attention.
The traditional Chinese holiday to remember ancestors, which lasted from April 5 to 7 this year, raked in 684 million yuan ($109 million) — a surge of 17 percent from 586 million yuan in 2017 — at the box office. The figure marks a new high for the annual holiday, according to Entgroup, an entertainment-industry tracker.
As a result, Hollywood sci-fi movie Ready Player One has made nearly 1 billion yuan since it was released in China on March 30, making it Steven Spielberg’s highest-grossing film in the country.
Bollywood’s Hindi Medium soared as a sleeper hit to seize the second slot at the holiday box office. The movie is about a rich couple’s crazy plan to get their 3-year-old daughter into a top school, because they believe it is a passport to an easier life when she grows up. The themes of education and parenting seem to have resonated with Chinese parents in particular.
The Chinese films Wrath of
Silence, a crime noir directed by rising filmmaker Xin Yukun, and Light Chaser Animation’s third feature, Cats
and Peachtopia, recounting a kitten’s dream, followed behind the foreign movies at the box office but were expected to do better in the remaining days of the month.
The former is an experimental thriller, and the latter shows the technical progress made by domestic animators.
Although faced by two powerful imported rivals, the following weeks could see a change for other Chinese movies, too.
Eighteen, or nearly 80 percent of the 23 new movies to hit mainland theaters by the end of April, have been produced by domestic studios.
With the 37th Hong Kong Film Awards set to unveil its
Many good low-budget movies still find it hard to earn enough screenings at theaters.”
Gao Yitian, film producer
winners on April 15, people are already talking about Tomorrow Is Another Day, because of its four nominations at the awards. Aside from Teresa Mo’s nomination for the best actress, the movie has been nominated for best actor, best new performer and best new director.
The directorial debut of scriptwriter-turned-filmmaker Chan Tai-lee is based on a true story — a woman’s struggles while taking care of her son who has autism and finds her husband cheating on her with a young mistress. Tomorrow Is Another Day will be released on the mainland on April 20.
Taiwan singer-actress Liu Jo-ying, also known as Rene Liu, will appear on the big screen for the first time as a director. Us and Them will be released on April 28. The movie starring pop idols Jing Boran and Zhou Dongyu tells a bittersweet love story about two people over the course of a decade.
On Friday, the highly anticipated movies to be released are Dwayne Johnson’s sci-fi adventure Rampage and Natalie Portman’s Annihilation. Japanese animation
Mary and The Witch’s Flower by director Hiromasa Yonebayashi, once a major creator at the prestigious Studio Ghibli, will hit Chinese theaters on April 28.
The rest of April will be a battleground for domestic films, which currently outnumber foreign movies.
“April is a bit special as it is in the middle of two lucrative box-office seasons — the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday and the May Day holiday,” says Jiang Yong, a Beijing-based trade analyst, adding that more market potential for domestic films will be created in coming days.
But Gao Yitian, a veteran film producer, still has concerns about the Chinese box office.
“Many good low-budget movies still find it hard to earn enough screenings at theaters, which means audiences can’t easily buy tickets for such films, even if they want to watch them,” Gao says.