China’s Wandering Earth sci-fi flick tops global charts

The Wandering Earth, the first blockbuster sci-fi film to be made in China, stood atop global box offices, grossing more than $385 million as of Tuesday and opening to packed cinemas, according to the movie’s official Weibo account.

Director Guo Fan’s futuristic feature film in 3D-IMAX and standard format has also been getting positive feedback from both critics and moviegoers.

In China, the movie earned $304 million in its first six days, with IMAX screens accounting for 12 percent of the film’s total estimated gross revenue, Variety said. It opened domestically on Feb 5, Lunar New Year’s Day, which marked the beginning of the weeklong holiday that is traditionally a peak box-office period in China.

In the United States, where it opened on Friday and will be shown at AMC theaters in 22 cities, the box-office has climbed to over $2 million, according to box office tracker Mojo. The film will also will be shown in three Canadian cities and also in Australia.

The Wandering Earth concerns the future death of our sun as it goes supernova. It is an adaptation of a short story by Liu Cixin whose novel The Three-Body Problem won the Hugo Award in 2015. That was China’s first win for international science fiction’s highest honor.

In New York, the film is being shown several times a day at an AMC theater on West 42nd Street in the Times Square area. Almost all of those waiting to get into the theater on Tuesday were Chinese.

“The movie is really popular in my friends’ circle, and many friends recommended it,” Kyle, a 23-year-old recent graduate of Stony Brook University in New York, told China Daily on Tuesday.

In California, a check of AMC theaters on Tuesday revealed some movie houses showing The

Wandering Earth sold out.

At an AMC theater in Santa Clara, a box office employee named Maura, told China Daily that the film has been the No 1 movie there over the past week. “It’s been showing for a week, and it’s almost sold out every showing,” she said.

“I think the film is at the same level with Hollywood sci-fi films,” said Senny Shen, a computer engineer in Silicon Valley who had just left a theater on Tuesday.

Shen said Chinese audiences can resonate with the film more readily than Hollywood superhero movies, “though several times, the film seems focused too much on special effects”.

“Visually spectacular, with big ideas and emotional, intimate human drama, like novelist Liu Cixin’s masterpiece The Three-Body

Problem, but on a smaller scale. Astonishing imagery,” wrote Twitter user Michael R. Perry. “I love ‘hard’ sci-fi and Chinese movies.”

“Guo Fan’s epic sci-fi blockbuster is pulchritudinous, quite humorous and surprisingly schmaltzy. Despite its insubstantial script and middle-of-the-road performances by its ensemble, the film still manages to delight its audience with its huge action-filled sequences and staggering visuals,” wrote a Twitter user named Lau.

On imdb.com, an online film database, a user named wilsonny wrote: “This is so far the best sci-fi Chinese movie I have ever seen. Honestly speaking, this movie is far better than similar Hollywood movies.”

“After watching tons of Hollywood science-fiction movies or superhero movies, I already had no interest or hope for Chinese films for many reasons. But this one indeed blew my mind and I just can’t wait to watch it again,” said another user on imdb.com.

So far, the film has scored 7.9 out of 10 on imdb, with more than 3,000 users rating it.

Many US film critics have given the movie solid marks.

The Wandering Earth is “frequently breathless”, said a review on The Verge website. “The country’s first big-budget science fiction epic is often familiar, but it does spectacle on an impressive scale. This is frequently a gorgeously rendered film, with an emphasis on intimidating space vistas that will look tremendous on IMAX screens,” the review said.

“The Wandering Earth shows that China no longer needs Hollywood imports to provide Chinese audiences with blockbuster movies. If China no longer requires Hollywood, then Hollywood can no longer rely on China,’’ said the Forbes’ reviewer.

“The special effects are certain to be measured against Hollywood’s, and the preliminary reviews have been positive,’’ said The New York Times.

The film’s budget reportedly reached nearly $50 million. Much of it was filmed in the new Oriental Movie Metropolis, an $8 billion studio in the coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong province, built by real estate and entertainment conglomerate Dalian Wanda. Wanda Group is the majority owner of AMC theaters in the US.

Director Guo told the Times: “As long as this one does not lose money, we can continue to make science-fiction films.”