China Box Office: ‘Stand by Me’ Retains Top Spot as ‘The Wild Robot’ Cranks Up Third Place
Chinese-produced drama film “Stand by Me” held on to top spot at the mainland China box office. Dreamworks Animation’s “The Wild Robot” enjoyed a modest third-place debut.
After an almost imperceptible uplift provided a week earlier by the Mid Autumn Festival, mainland China’s theatrical business extended the slump that it has been in since the second quarter.
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Weekend box office, in the country with a population of 1.3 billion, and some 90,000 cinema screens in commercial operation, amounted to just $25.1 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway. That was the third lowest weekend figure this year.
The Mid-Autumn Festival box office totaled RMB389 million ($55.2 million) between Sept. 14 -17, according to the National Film Administration. That was less than half of the RMB803 million recorded at the same time of year in 2019. Chinese films accounted for an 85% market share. The slump came despite an all-time record number of screening sessions, some 1.36 million.
Over the latest weekend, “Stand by Me,” the story of two orphaned or abandoned children who meet up and help each other as teenagers, grossed RMB38.2 million ($5.4 million) in its second weekend of release. That gives it cumulative of $29.2 million since releasing on Sept. 13. It stars Karry Wang, leader of the popular TFBoys boy band.
In second place, “Like a Rolling Stone,” a drama film about a 50-year-old woman who decides to take charge of her own life and embarks on a driving tour, earned RMB26.3 million ($3.7 million). That lifts it to an eight-day cumulative of $11.2 million.
“The Wild Robot” opened with RMB22.7 million ($3.2 million). Including previews, it has a cumulative of $3.7 million.
“A Frozen Rage,” a crime comedy-drama about social justice, earned $2.6 million in fourth place. Having opened only on Sunday a week earlier, its cumulative after eight days stands at $10.9 million.
“Enjoy Yourself,” a drama film about a divorced couple’s dispute over human embryo ownership, took fifth place. It earned $1.8 million, for a running total of $6.8 million since releasing on (Sunday) Sept. 15.
Artisan Gateway reports that the year-to-date cumulative box office id $4.86 billion. It calculates that is more than 22% below last year’s trend.
The next couple of weeks may prove decisive in clarifying whether the Chinese box office can return to the path of recovery.
“Transformers One” is the only major film getting a conventional Friday release in China. It will have a three-day window to prosper, but will inevitably lose screens to the crop of Chinese-made titles that delay their release and compete for the National Day holiday crowds.
On Monday (Sept. 30) the first of these will be Chen Kaige’s “The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death,” the second part of a war trilogy.
On Tuesday (Oct. 1), it will be joined by: Ning Hao and Xu Lei’s comedy-drama “The Hutong Cowboy”; Lu Chuan’s sci-fi monster film “Bureau 749”; Liu Jiangjiang’s disaster drama “Give You A Candy”; Oxide Pang’s action thriller “High Forces”; Wu Bai’s crime film “Tiger Wolf Rabbit”; Zhang Luan’s Jackie Cha-starring action-comedy “Panda Plan”; Chinese animation “New Happy Dad and Son 6: Shrunk”; and “A Tapestry of a Legendary Land,” which is adapted from a stage production.
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