Alibaba Annual Profits Lower, Rocked by Investment Losses, Slowing China Economy

An unusual 50p coin has sold for almost 270 times its face value on eBay, with thousands more still in circulation.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefA powerfully impressive opening by “Jurassic World Dominion” and a partial reopening of cinemas gave China its biggest box office weekend in more than three months. The dinosaur franchise movie earned $53 million (RMB355 million) in three days in China, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. The film chewed off a massive 88% share of the total weekend market.

Refresh for latest…: Universal/Amblin Entertainment’s Jurassic World Dominion is putting its dino-print out in an additional 57 overseas markets this weekend after stomping into 15 early hubs last session. Through Thursday, the Colin Trevorrow-directed threequel has grossed $95.1M at the international box office. When including Friday’s China start, that rises to $110.4M.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefMultinational sportswear group Nike said on Wednesday that will cease to operate its Nike Run Club app in China from early next month. The group said that it plans to launch a local equivalent in the future.Nike joins an expanding list of international media and tech companies that are pulling out of China, where consumer, financial, tech and media regulations are increasingly incompatible with those elsewhere in the world.

Jurassic World: Dominion stops being an upcoming movie, and starts playing at a theater near you. After early showings in international markets, the big Hollywood premiere of director Colin Trevorrow’s epic conclusion has brought us that much closer to the flick's theatrical release. With legacy stars colliding with the Jurassic World cast, some great photos have emerged from the event; and I’m super obsessed with one Chris Pratt and Laura Dern moment that came out of it.

Johnny Depp visit. The 58-year-old dined out at Varanasi in the city's Broad Street on Sunday night.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“My Blue Summer,” a local romance led the Chinese box office higher over the latest weekend with a modestly respectable $7.2 million (RMB48.2 million) opening session. But the trend is hard to discern due to continually changing COVID conditions in China and the country’s uncertain economic direction.The nationwide Friday to Sunday box office total was $26.7 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. The total was more than double the $11.5 million achieved the previous weekend.The performance was goosed by the Dragon Boat Holiday weekend, operating June 3-5.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChinese video streamer iQiyi unveiled a rare quarterly profit in the three months to March, amidst a mixed picture on revenue and subscriptions.The company, which is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange but is predominantly controlled by Chinese tech conglomerate Baidu, said in a filing that it had achieved net income attributable of RMB169 million ($26.7 million), compared to net loss attributable of RMB1.3 billion in the same period in 2021.After more than a decade of annual losses, the company has recently discovered a need to become more efficient and focus on earnings rather than growth.Revenues between January and March 2022 amounted to RMB7.3 billion ($1.1 billion) a decrease of 9% year-over-year. But the revenue portion that came from membership services was RMB4.5 billion ($705.4 million), increasing 4% year-over-year.

China recently set release dates for two summer films – Universal’s Jurassic World Dominion June 10 and big local language production Mozart From Space (by the director of the Detective Chinatown series) July 15. That’s good news for the giant market’s reopening, said Imax CEO Rich Gelfond. But he doesn’t expect heightened scrutiny of Hollywood fare to subside anytime soon despite the Jurassic news. China has declined to date many high-profile U.S. films with recent Marvel omissions perhaps the most glaring.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefTang Wei, the Chinese star of Korean film “Decision to Leave,” says she told director Park Chan-wook that he’d made her life complete after seeing the finished version of the film at its Cannes Film Festival gala premiere.The film played in competition this week in Cannes. She revealed her confession on Tuesday at a press event, accompanied by Park, cast member Park Hae-il and scriptwriter Chung Soo-kyung.Switching between Chinese and English, Tang Wei said: “This in not the first time I’ve worked with a Korean director.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefCinema box office this year in North America is poised to overtake theatrical revenues in China, the country that has been the world’s largest movie market for the past two years.Before the latest weekend, gross revenues in the year to date stood at $2.38 billion for the North American compared with $2.43 billion for China, according to data from ComScore.U.K.-based research firm Gower Street Analytics forecast that the North American figure would overtake China’s revenues over the weekend or early this week. That reflects business growth in North America and the current reversal in China, where anti-COVID measures are causing renewed cinema closures.Gower Street says that some 85% of global cinemas are now open for business, compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe question arising at every Cannes Film Festival lineup announcement about why the festival has not selected films from a particular country tends to irk chief selector Thierry Frémaux. But this year, with films from China notable by their absence, Frémaux may be asking himself if he messed up, or whether bigger forces are at play?Last year, Cannes was at pains to conceal its selection of Hong Kong pro-democracy film “Revolution of Our Times” until as late as possible, in order not to alert mainland Chinese authorities or disrupt the other Chinese indies showing in the festival.China experts differ as to how much Cannes’ defiance last year was a factor in this year’s de facto boycott.

ESPN is reporting that the NBA playoffs are back for China’s TV viewers after a long banishment over controvesial political statements by an executive.

a new lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice is seeking to compel former hotel magnate and ex-Republican Party finance chair Steve Wynn to register as a foreign agent.The move comes in response to what DoJ says is his work on behalf of the government of China in 2017, when Wynn repeatedly lobbied Donald Trump to deport a Chinese businessman seeking asylum in the United States.The lawsuit does not identify who the businessman was, but according to The New York Times, they are likely referring to Guo Wengui, an outspoken critic of corruption in the Chinese government.