At China box office, ‘L Storm’ blows to RM123 million debut
BEIJING: As a typhoon slammed into Hong Kong over the weekend, action-thriller L Storm topped the Chinese box office with an opening weekend score of US$ 29.4 million (nearly RM123 million).
That gave it nearly 60 per cent market share on another quiet weekend in mainland China cinemas.
The weekend was marked by the release of a large number of smaller titles into a window ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday blockbusters at the end of the month. Only L Storm made any significant impact, and was the third highest grossing film worldwide, according to ComScore.
The movie is a sequel to 2016 title S Storm and involves popular star Louis Koo as an anti- corruption investigator, this time apparently on the wrong side of the law. Directed by David Lam, it is produced by Raymond Wong’s Pegasus Films, and counts Huace Pictures, Wanda, and Er Dong Pictures as mainland Chinese co-producers. Data from Ent Group show it given a wide release, with over 120,000 screenings per day.
The top ten films earned a collective US$ 51 million over the three days from Friday to Sunday. That was the fourth consecutive weekend decline and the third lowest grossing weekend of the year.
The weekend was marked by the release of a large number of smaller titles into a window ahead of the Autumn Festival holiday blockbusters at the end of the month. Only L Storm made any significant impact, and was the third highest grossing film worldwide, according to ComScore.
Tom Cruise- starring Mission: Impossible – Fallout slipped to second place and took US$ 12 million in its third week on release. After 17 days, its cumulative in China is US$ 162 million. Some US$ 14 million of that has come from IMAX locations.
Japanese detective drama, Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura took third place for state- owned distributor Huaxia. Its opening score was US$ 3.69 million. Another Japanese film, romance Let Me Eat Your Pancreas, was also released this weekend. It scored US$ 420,000 for tenth place.
Fourth place belonged to US prehistoric adventure Alpha. It earned US$ 1.59 million in its second weekend, giving it a total of US$ 15.3 million. Ant-Man and the Wasp earned US$ 1.18 million in its fourth week on release in China. After 24 days it has earned US$ 120 million.
Next week Wolf Warriors 2 gets a re-release. It will compete with Japanese animation Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters and Ash is Purest White.