This weekend was particularly one to watch given the lifting of the summer blackout veil in China.
TG is the first Hollywood movie released back into the Middle Kingdom since Jurassic World all the way back in early June. Banging the drum for his return to the Paramount franchise, Arnold Schwarzenegger last week travelled to China, creating increased buzz by appearing even on the local version of The Voice. Despite the success of local filmsduring the blackout period, moviegoers tend to avidly await the return of Hollywood. Lending some credence to that, TG‘s $2.2M in midnight showings brought the 4th best ever score. And, the one-day $27.4M tally (incluing midnights) on Sunday is the 4th best opening day of all time for a Hollywood movie in the market behind Furious 7, Avengers: Age Of Ultron and Transformers: Age Of Extinction. It’s also Paramount’s 2nd best bow ever behind TAOE.
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This is the first time the Paramount/Skydance film has been at the top of the international weekend chart since early July. The international cume is $264M and the global cume through Sunday is $335.1M.
The Gift
Early this month, a low-budget psychological thriller, The Gift, premiered in American cinemas and unexpectedly became a box office hit in its first week, ranking only after Hollywood blockbusters Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Fantastic Four.
The Gift‘s success in the American movie market has encouraged Chinese entertainment tycoon Wang Zhongjun.Wang, chairman of the mainland’s largest private film and television production company Huayi Brothers, has been aggressively expanding his business empire overseas.
The Gift is his first movie investment in partnership with American company STX Entertainment. The two firms have agreed to jointly invest in at least 18 Hollywood films by the end of 2017.
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“The China market is growing so fast, there’s no doubt a world-class entertainment company will emerge from China,” Wang, 54, said. “We hope Huayi Brothers can [achieve that] within three to five years.” The Beijing-based company is also in talks with at least two South Korean entertainment firms, which Wang may acquire. The movie mogul knows how to leverage the power of capital to fund his ambitious plans. Last Tuesday, Huayi Brothers and mainland lender Ping An Bank signed a 30 billion yuan (HK$36 billion) agreement for the bank to provide funds to back Huayi’s overseas expansion plan and domestic tourism project.
The hot money inflow is a reflection of the rosy prospects of the mainland film industry – the world’s second-largest film market after the United States.
In the first half of the year, the mainland box office raked in US$3.26 billion, a nearly 50 per cent increase year-on-year. The US box office took US$5.55 billion in the same period.China is expected to become the world’s No1 film market within the next few years. “Twenty years ago, DreamWorks Studios and Huayi Brothers were founded. “DreamWorks is a great company. But in terms of market value, Huayi is five times that of DreamWorks at its peak,” Wang said. “Look at Warner Brothers. It has more than 100 years of history and is valued at US$40 billion. I believe we don’t need to wait that long to see [Huayi’s] market value reach tens of billions of dollars.”
Last year, Huayi Brothers’ revenue grew nearly 20 per cent to 2.4 billion yuan; net profit was 890 million yuan.
