China’s latest nationalistic war epic The Battle at Lake Changjin 2 surged past the $400 million mark on Monday, after earning $395 million over the first seven days of China’s Lunar New Year holiday.
The muscular performance falls a bit short of some of the wilder forecasts analysts in China and abroad had been entertaining for the tentpole though. Prior to the film’s release, China’s state-backed Global Times tabloid predicted that The Battle at Lake Changjin 2 would become China’s first film to earn more than $1 billion. As of Monday, however, Chinese ticketing service Maoyan had pared back its own previously bullish estimates, dropping the forecast for the film to about $620 million (the company’s original predictions topped $800 million).
The downshift, reflecting less heat in China’s 2022 Lunar New Year theatrical market than expected, has applied to the country’s whole slate of holiday tentpoles. During the seven-day festival period — during which the bulk of the Chinese population is off work, relaxing, celebrating and luxuriating with family and friends — total theatrical revenue totaled $941.6 million (RMB 6 billion), according to regional consultancy Artisan Gateway. That’s down 21 percent from 2021’s huge Chinese New Year haul of $1.2 billion (RMB 7.8 billion), but slightly better, in both local currency terms and dollars, from 2019’s pre-coronavirus pandemic holiday total of $881.3 million (or RMB 5.9 billion at the time).
The takeaway signals a solid outcome for China’s major distributors and exhibitors this year, albeit a slight comedown from the overwhelmingly energized 2021 holiday frame, when Chinese filmgoers returned to the cinema en masse after approximately 12 months of movie theater shutdowns due to China’s early experience of the pandemic. Lacking that pent-up demand — and buffeted by omicron COVID scares in many major cities, and with counter-programming competition from the Beijing Olympics — 2022’s holiday box office just didn’t have the same pop.
But analysts’ pre-holiday bullishness was understandable given the strong and well diversified slate of Chinese tentpoles on offer this Spring Festival.
The holiday’s second place finisher was New Classic Media’s well received comedy caper Too Cool to Kill, which had brought in $217 million by the end of Sunday. Director Wen Muye’s inspirational drama Nice View, meanwhile, became the holiday favorite of Chinese film industry insiders, who have rallied behind the title on social media. The movie climbed from fifth place into third throughout the course of the week, earning $104.4 million. Fantawild’s family animation Bonnie Bears: Back to Earth scored fourth place with $88 million, while Han Han’s road trip drama Only Fools Rush currently ranks a notch below with about $73 million. Zhang Yimou’s well-reviewed Korean War movie Snipers has overtaken Only Fools Rush In in terms of daily sales while totaling just $41 million, owning to its slower start.
The holiday tentpoles will have the market all to themselves to continue building on their big numbers until Disney’s Death on the Nile releases in China on Feb. 19.
Source: Hollywood
