China Box Office: ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ Leads Weekend, But Momentum Slows

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief American musical comedy film “Lyle Lyle Crocodile,” is set to release in mainland China cinemas, having received approvals for import and distribution from Chinese authorities. It will play in China from April 15, 2023. The film was released in North America in early October last year and many other territories at the end of 2022. Parts of Asia have been later to receive the title with Korea and Taiwan play it from January and Japan set to open it from March 24. The film has grossed $108 million worldwide, with $60.9 million of that coming from international markets and $46.8 million from the North American domestic market, studio backer Sony Pictures reported.

Naman Ramachandran Director Siddharth Anand is jubilant at the continuing success of blockbuster “Pathaan,” starring Shah Rukh Khan. The film’s revenues have surpassed those of the Hindi-language dubbed version of S.S. Rajamouli’s “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion” in recent days. “Pathaan,” produced by Yash Raj Films (YRF), has grossed $126.7 million, beating the Hindi dubbed version of “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion,” which had grossed $98.8 million in 2017. “Baahubali 2,” which was made in the Telugu and Tamil languages, earned $278 million worldwide, making it the second highest grossing Indian film of all time behind 2016’s Hindi-language “Dangal” that collected $311 million globally (much of that from mainland China). “Dangal” collected $65.6 million in India and is now the fourth highest Hindi-language grosser in the country after “Pathaan,” and the Hindi dubbed versions of “Baahubali 2” and “K.G.F: Chapter 2.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Adam Driver-starring sci-fi adventure film “65” has been approved for theatrical release in mainland China. It will hit cinemas on March 31, some three weeks after the film began to release in other international territories. The film is branded as a Columbia Pictures title and will be released by the Sony label in most territories. In China, however, all revenue-sharing import titles are officially handled by a state-owned enterprise. The Hollywood studio’s Chinese office theoretically operates in an advisory capacity, though in practice it is likely to be involved in marketing strategy and p&a decisions. The film has a survival-quest narrative. After a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills (Driver) quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth some 65 million years ago. Now, with only one chance at rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), must make their way across an unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures in an epic fight to survive.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief TriStar Pictures film “The Woman King” has been given official permission to release in cinemas in mainland China. It is expected to debut on April 14. The Viola Davis-starring fantasy action film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September last year and went into U.S. and international commercial release shortly after. The film has grossed $97.2 million worldwide, with $29.9 million coming from international markets and $67.3 million in North America. While the China release is significantly later than the rest of the world, potentially opening the film to online piracy, the launch date was communicated by Chinese authorities with some five weeks of advanced notice. That is more than many Hollywood films have received in China and gives the local marketing teams a reasonable chance to promote the film’s theatrical launch.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Global streaming operation Netflix is forecast to spend $1.9 billion on local content in the Asia-Pacific region this year as group revenue from the region accelerates to 12%, according to a new report. The content investment spending figure represents a 15% hike. Netflix will grow revenues this year by 12% year-on-year to exceed $4 billion compared with 9% growth in 2022, says a new report published on Monday by Media Partners Asia.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Cyber Heist,” a crime thriller directed by Hong Kong’s Wong Hing-fan (“I’m Livin’ It”) and scripted by Soi Cheang (aka Cheang Pou Soi), took the top spot at the mainland Chinese box office over the weekend. It earned a very modest $6.2 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. But that was enough to win on the quietest weekend since January’s Lunar New Year holiday season. “Cyber Heist” stars Aaron Kwok as a cyber security engineer who develops a state-of-the-art firewall that is capable of fending off online attacks against the global financial system. But he does not realize that in doing so he has stepped into a minefield that is even more dangerous. The picture also stars Lam Ka-tun and Simon Yam.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Already the highest grossing local film in its home market, courtroom drama, “A Guilty Conscience” has broken into Hong Kong’s all-time top ten box office ranking with a cumulative of HK$107 million ($13.7 million). Data from Hong Kong Box Office Ltd. shows the film achieving the feat after just 41 days in cinemas and coming within HK$1 million ($150,000) of overtaking “Top Gun: Maverick.” The data firm noted that the last time a Hong Kong film got this far was with fantasy-action-comedy “Kung Fu Hustle” in 2004. Since then, it has been overtaken by a fleet of Hollywood titles. Hong Hong’s current top ten is headed by “Avengers: Endgame” and includes six Marvel movies, the two “Avatar” titles and “Titanic.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Sculptor turned director Wu Lang made a splash at the Berlin Film Festival with his debut feature “Absence” playing in the festival’s showcase Encounters section. With a high-profile cast headed by Lee Kang-sheng (“What Time Is It There?” “The Wayward Cloud”) and Li Meng (“The Bad Kids,” “The Guillotines”) “Absence” is an art-house romance that uses skyscapes and urban landscapes as metaphors for inner feelings. The seduction starts with a man’s return to Hainan Island after ten years in jail and ends with a flock of sheep in an abandoned construction site. Wu: Shooting the first short film for me had two purposes. First, making a film is not easy in terms of financing and finding coproducers. So, first I wanted to make a short in order to get myself started.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Maoyan, the Chinese film ticketing agency and film distribution company, has issued a warning that profits for 2022 are set to take a steep dive. Revenue for last year is expected to come in at RMB2.27 billion and RMB2.37 billion, representing a decrease of up to 31% compared with 2021. Profit attributable to the owners of the company will range between approximately RMB70 million and RMB120 million, representing a decrease of approximately 67% to 81% compared with attributable profit in 2021, which had been RMB369 million. The company’s fortunes are closely allied to the trend of the mainland Chinese box office. Nationwide theatrical grosses took a huge tumble in the second half of the year as the government stepped up its battle against the COVID outbreak, causing the full year box office to fall by 36%.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong courtroom drama film “A Guilty Conscience” edged aside Chinese and Hollywood tentpole films to top the mainland China box office in its opening weekend. According to data from consultancy service Artisan Gateway, the film earned $8.5 million (RMB58.4 million) in its opening three days between Friday and Sunday. “The Wandering Earth 2,” which has been in cinemas for over a month, earned $7.4 million to elevate its cumulative total to $568 million. “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which opened on top a week earlier, collected $7.0 million, giving it a 10-day cumulative of $31.4 million.

Refresh for latest…: Coming out of its second weekend, Disney/Marvel’s Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania has grossed $363.6M globally. Of that, $167.3M is from domestic and $196.3M from the international box office.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China-based video streamer iQiyi achieved a surge in paying subscriptions and achieved net profits in the fourth quarter of 2022. While still loss-making over the full year, the company hailed its turnaround as “miraculous.” In the October-December period, gross revenues were RMB7.6 billion ($1.1 billion), representing a 3% increase year over year, the company said in a regulatory filing. Net income attributable to iQiyi was RMB304 million ($44.1 million), compared to a net loss of RMB1.8 billion in the same period in 2021. Over the course of the full 2022, total revenues were RMB29.0 billion ($4.2 billion), representing a 5% decrease from 2021. Net losses decreased from RMB6.2 billion to RMB136 million ($19.7 million).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Profits at Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce and media conglomerate, more than doubled in the three months to December 2022 to reach $6.63 billion (RMB45.7 billion), on revenues that increased by 2% to $35.9 billion (RMB248 billion). The figures, which constitute the third quarter of Alibaba’s current financial year to end March 2023, represent a significant rebound after two difficult quarters. Alibaba’s aggregate net profits between April and December are still down by 32% at just $6.32 billion, compared with the equivalent nine-month period in 2021. The group portrayed the results as “solid [..] despite softer demand, supply chain and logistics disruptions due to impact of changes in COVID-19 measures,” and said that China’s improving macro-economic outlook will help it recover further.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Sometimes it takes more than a pair of global blockbusters to shake off the lingering impact of a devastating public health crisis. Quarterly sales and profits fell at Imax despite the commercial success of “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The big screen company recorded revenues of $98 million, a 10% drop from the $108.6 million that Imax recorded in the year-ago period. The company also recorded profits of $2.6 million, compared to the $10.1 million that Imax logged in the year-ago period. That came out to earnings of 19 cents a share, which failed to match the profits of the 31 cents that Imax recorded in the same period in 2021.

Imax said today it expects return to pre-pandemic gross box office level of $1.1 billion in 2023.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema has unveiled its 85-title lineup for the edition that starts later this month (February 28 to March 7, 2023). Elements include a 10-film competition section, a 10-film documentary film section, a tribute to the Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu; a thematic section “Asian Diaspora Cinema” offering a panorama of works by directors from Asian countries living in exile; and a Philippines cinema sidebar. Fiction films in competition include: Azerbaijan’s “Cold as Marble,” by Asif Rustamov; China’s “In Our Prime,” by Liu Yulin; Korea’s “A Letter from Kyoto,” by Kim Min-ju; India’s: “Behind Veils,” by Praveen Morshhale; Iran’s “No End,” by Nader Saievar; Mongolia’s “The Sales Girl,” by Sengedorj Janchivdorj; The Philippines’s “Feast,” by Brillante Mendoza; Singapore’s “#LookAtMe,” by Ken Kwek; and Vietnam’s “Memento Mori: Earth,” by Marcus Vu Manh Cuong. The president of the jury is Lee Yong-kwan, president of the Busan film festival.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” Disney/20th Century’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” has reached one last box office milestone in its tenth weekend in theaters by passing the lifetime gross of “Titanic” with a global total of $2.24 billion. This means that the Best Picture Oscar-nominated sequel sits only behind the first “Avatar” and “Avengers: Endgame” in third on the all-time global box office list before inflation adjustment.

Despite Disney/Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania soaking up the global box office with $225M start, the studio’s sister 20th Century Studios/Lightstorm James Cameron sequel Avatar: The Way of Water refuses to stop, despite the fact that the former title has all the premium tickets. Avatar: The Way of Water‘s running worldwide total now stands at $2.243 billion, making it the third highest movie ever, sending Cameron’s own Titanic (which recently had a re-release) to fourth with $2.242 billion.

“Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” is already getting fans buzzing at the box office.

“Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” is already getting fans buzzing at the box office.