China Box Office: ‘No More Bets’ Hits $470 Million After Fourth Weekend on Top

J. Kim Murphy Hercule Poirot is back on the case this weekend, with Kenneth Branagh’s “A Haunting in Venice” hoping to best a very quiet box office in its opening. The horror-tinged whodunnit scored$5.5 million from 3,305 theaters on its opening day, a figure that includes $1.2 million in Thursday previews.

In its latest milestone, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has passed the $900M mark worldwide. The estimated total through Friday is $903M, including $586M from the international box office. With Saturday and Sunday numbers, that global cume is projected to reach $912M. This will make it the highest grossing biopic ever at the global box office, ahead of Bohemian Rhapsody. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief That the Toronto world premiere of “The Movie Emperor” is sponsored by high-end home appliance manufacturer Dyson is deliciously and understatedly ironic. In the movie, innocuous-seeming domestic equipment — from the humble suitcase to floor sweeping robots — run quietly amok.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Dust to Dust,” a low-key crime thriller, topped the mainland Chinese box office over the weekend, despite only being released on Saturday. The film, directed by Jonathan Li, recounts how 21 years after a major armed robbery, a video of the crime resurfaces and causes the police to reopen their investigation. It had its world premiere in June, in competition at the Shanghai International Film Festival. With Da Peng, a former talk show host, required to age significantly for the lead role, the film earned $22.2 million (RMB160 million) in just two days, according to consultancy Artisan Gateway.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Strong summer season performances by movies across the world have sped up the movie industry’s global recovery. And for the second time this year, analysis firm Gower Street Analytics has revised its forecast for the 2023 cinema year upwards. The London-based firm is now forecasting that the full-year global gross box office will weigh in at $34.5 billion, a $2.5 billion increase on its April forecast. The upgrade reflects a strong July-August period globally, but with the majority of the increase due to the summer movie season boom in China. If the new projection holds good, it would see global box office finish 33% ahead of 2022 (35% at current exchange rates). It would also come in just 12% behind the average of the last three pre-pandemic years, 2017-2019, the firm said. The forecast is based on the currently known release calendar for the remaining four months of the year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “No More Bets,” the smash hit Chinese crime thriller that has earned more than half a billion dollars in its home market, is hurriedly adding new territories to release. It will release in the U.K. and Ireland from Friday through distributor Trinity Cine Asia.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Entertainment, sports and brand licensing firms WildBrain CPLG and WildBrain Ltd. have brokered location-based entertainment (LBE) deals on behalf of Peanuts Worldwide for “Peanuts,” “Teletubbies” and “In the Night Garden” with China’s Max-Matching Entertainments. These are expected to lead to the opening of family entertainment centers and IP-themed hotel rooms for each brand in Beijing, in Zhongshan City, Guangdong and a third city yet to be announced.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Busan International Film Festival put aside many of its recent internal and local political problems to Tuesday unveil a large selection ranging from bleeding edge art titles to international festival favorites. “The difficult times are not behind us, but hard work has made this year’s festival better than ever,” said programmer and interim festival chief Nam Dong-chul, speaking at an online press conference. International guests expected to attend the festival include Luc Besson, Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing, Japanese directors Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Kore-Eda Hirokazu, Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Korean Americans Justin Chon (“Gook”) and Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”). Hong Kong-based superstar Chow Yun-fat has been named as Busan’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year and will be in person to receive the award.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Oppenheimer” landed on top of the mainland China cinema box office with an impressive score for a Hollywood movie in the current climate. More typically, gaming adaptation “Gran Turismo” failed to get far off the start line. While most films open in China on Fridays, Christopher Nolan’s nuclear opus was given a wide release from Wednesday. It scored $21.3 million (RMB154 million) over the conventional Friday to Sunday weekend and $30.7 million (RMB221 million) over its opening five days, according to data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway.

Though Labor Day is upon us domestically — and its somewhat equivalents in many overseas markets to mark the end of summer — the hits keep coming as holds this session were strong on the season’s leaders while a new entry surprised. To wit, and starting with the latter: Sony/Escape Artists’ The Equalizer 3 blazed to a $60.6M global start this weekend, to clock the franchise’s best opening ever. Of that, the $26.1M debut in 49 international box office markets was also a new record bow for the Denzel Washington-led series.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Denzel Washington’s bloody assassin-thriller “The Equalizer 3” debuted at the top of box office charts with $34.5 million over the weekend and an estimated $41 million through Monday’s Labor Day holiday. It’s the second-biggest Labor Day opening weekend in modern times, though the holiday isn’t known for bringing people to the movies. After the record-holder Marvel’s 2021 blockbuster “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” ($75 million for the three days, $94.6 million through Monday), the next highest-grossing Labor Day debut is Rob Zombie’s 2007 “Halloween” remake ($26 million for the three days, $30 million through Monday).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong-based, Mainland China-born auteur Yonfan has scandalized and enthralled Chinese-speaking parts of Asia in a career that has spanned fine-art photography, filmmaking and journalism. Further afield, he has become a regular on the Lido. His 1995 feature “Bugis Street,” which has been restored and is screening in the Venice Classics section, achieved notoriety at the time of its debut. It is set in the red-light area of Singapore, at a time shortly after the country had achieved independence and before it earned its buttoned-up, conservative reputation. Loosely structured, the film follows a 16-year-old woman (played by Hiep Thi Le), who’s an employee at the appropriately named Sin Sin Hotel.

This summer’s box office is set to hit $4 billion for the 13th time ever, +16% over last summer. Barbie and Oppenheimer, which together rep 22% of that figure created a blast radius, finally bringing infrequent moviegoers back to cinemas after Covid sidelined audiences.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief CAA China has teamed up with the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society to unveil a joint initiative that will foster Chinese-language genre film projects. The HGC initiative will operate an open call for projects from Monday until the end of October.

Oppenheimer has topped the worldwide box office in its sixth week of release, surpassing Barbie for the first time.Since both films were released on July 21, Greta Gerwig’s fantasy comedy has remained ahead of Oppenheimer at the global box office. On the weekend of August 25-27, however, Christopher Nolan’s historical drama topped the chart.As reported by ScreenDaily, Oppenheimer took $38.1million globally within the weekend timeframe, while Barbie trailed behind with $35.3million.The boost is a result of Oppenheimer’s belated release in two new countries: Italy, where it grossed $9.7million over its five-day debut, and Greece, where it racked up $882,000.The film looks set to receive a significant boost this week, with Oppenheimer opening in China on Wednesday (August 30).Despite trailing behind this week, Barbie is still on track to surpass The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the highest-grossing movie of 2023.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The main competition section of the Busan International Film Festival is set to showcase two new features from Bangladeshi directors, the feature debut of Japanese documentary maker Mori Tatsuya and ruminations on Hong Kong by mainland Chinese director Choi Ji. The festival on Wednesday unveiled its New Currents competition section, reserved for films by directors making their first or second works of fiction, as well as its Jiseok section, a showcase for somewhat more established Asian auteurs. In addition to the Bangladesh duo, New Currents includes two films from Japan, two from Korea and one each from China, Thailand, Malaysia and India. From Bangladesh, Iqbal H. Chowdhury’s “The Wrestler” sees an old fisherman challenge a wrestling champion to combat, and in “The Stranger” Biplob Sarkar tells a coming-of-age, gender-identity tale. From Japan, Mori recounts the events of the Great Kanto earthquake in “September 1923,” while Yamamoto Akira delves into profound and shocking love in “After the Fever.” New Currents’ Korean contributions come from Lee Jong-su, whose “Heritage” tracks a man who opts out of military service and his supervisor, and Sohn Hyun-lok, whose “That Summer’s Lie” blurs truth and fiction in memories of a past romance. India’s Rajesh S.

Summer may be drawing to a close, but the blockbusters of the season are still basking in box office glory. To wit: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is poised to become the highest-grossing Warner Bros movie of all time globally on Monday. Through today, the worldwide estimate is $1.34B, meaning just $1M separates it from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 to attain the record.

J. Kim Murphy The summer box office wind-down is in action as Columbia Pictures’ “Gran Turismo” looks to outrun a slew of holdovers. The racing feature got off to a head start with an $8.5 million opening day from 3,856 screens, a figure that includes a sizable $5.3 million from preview screenings over recent weeks.

Refresh for latest…: It’s been another very busy weekend at the international box office with milestones and great holds, as well as a new entry and local-language movies adding to the mix. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The box office in mainland China reached an all-time high in the summer season, according to figures from ticketing agency Maoyan Entertainment. The record was achieved with minimal input from Hollywood.