‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Continues U.K. Box Office Domination, ‘Ponniyin Selvan: 2’ Makes Strong Debut

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Fast & Furious 10” (aka “Fast X”) dominated the mainland China box office with a strong opening weekend and a revved up opening five days. Data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway shows Fast X scored $51.1 million between Friday and Sunday, to comfortably top the Chinese box office, with a 58% market share. Unusually, the film opened on a Wednesday. Over five days, it accumulated $77.4 million.Imax reported that the film pulled in $8.4 million from China, accounting for 11 of the China market opening, from fewer than 1% of the screens in the market. The figures reflect the five-day score, not the conventional weekend.

The opening weekend box office results for Universal’s “Fast X” are mixed as the latest “Fast & Furious” film is performing like a franchise in decline in the U.S. but is still grossing quite well overseas.

After a $60M opening for Fast X, a $110M 4-day start for The Little Mermaid, and a $80M+ debut for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Paramount will keep the summer tentpole train going with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts with an estimated $68M to $70M start in U.S. and Canada.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief More than two million people turned out on Wednesday to watch “Fast X” in Chinese movie theaters, spending a combined $15.3 million on the film on its first day of release. That made the tenth film in the “Fast & Furious” franchise a clear winner at the Chinese box office in an unusual midweek release. And it put “Fast X” on course to be the biggest Hollywood film so far this year in the world’s second largest movie market. Provisional data from local data service Ent Group showed that the film also enjoyed $2.83 million from previews on Tuesday. That gives an estimated $18.2 million total at the end of its first official day of release.

While it might seem that Fast X has run out of gas in the states, it’s totally turbo boasted overseas as the tenth installment in the Universal franchise is eyeing a an offshore start of $235M to 60M+ domestic. That will get Fast X to $295M worldwide, making it the third highest global start for a Fast & Furious movie after Fate of the Furious ($541.9M) and Furious 7 ($397.6M).

Naman Ramachandran Disney’s “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3” stayed atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for a second consecutive weekend with £5.4 million ($6.6 million) for a total of £23.9 million, per figures from Comscore. In second place, in its sixth weekend, Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” collected £858,444 for a total of £51 million. There were two debuts in the top five. Sony’s “Love Again” bowed in third place with £340,785 and Universal’s “Book Club: The Next Chapter” in fourth with £299,370. Rounding off the top five was Studiocanal’s “Evil Dead Rise,” which earned £258,417 in its fourth weekend for a total of £5 million.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3” enjoyed a second weekend on top of the mainland China box office, as all top five placed films remained unchanged and audiences await “Fast & Furious 10.” “Guardians Vol 3” earned $19.0 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That was a decent week-on-week hold, representing a drop of only 32% from its debut weekend, following a solid but unspectacular start. And it gives the film a total of $58.7 million after ten days in mainland Chinese theaters. Imax screens accounted for $3 million of the film’s weekend score in China and lifted the film’s Imax total in China to $10.4 million, which Imax calculates as 18% of its China total.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Box office headlines have lately been dominated by Hollywood movies like Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which has become the first movie of the year to hit $1 billion, and Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3.” But a closer look at the global box office recovery indicates that Tinseltown does not have the field to itself. In fact, international films and markets — not the United States — are driving the current global box office recovery. In some territories, local-language titles are even dominant over Hollywood releases. And the overall scale of overseas ticket sales now dwarfs that of North America by more than two to one.

It's really happening!

Naman Ramachandran Disney’s “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3” ruled the U.K. and Ireland box office with a £12 million ($15.2 million) opening, according to numbers released by Comscore. The latest Marvel Studios release debuted at Number 1 with an 72% market share, according to Disney, and had the biggest three-day opening weekend of 2023. In its fifth weekend, Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” collected £1.3 million in second place for a total of £49 million. In third position, in its third weekend, Studiocanal’s “Evil Dead Rise” earned £493,732 for a total of £4.4 million.

Brent Lang Executive Editor CJ 4DPlex is off to the strongest start in its history with revenues for the first four months of the year tracking 70% higher than 2022. It’s a sign of how much movie fans seem to be enjoying immersive experiences as the pandemic starts to recede. The first four months of 2023’s box office for the company’s 4DX and ScreenX theaters is tracking 36% higher than pre-pandemic levels (2019), and generating over $150 million through May 1. The company’s combined network has more than 1,100 premium screens consisting of both its ScreenX venues, the world’s first multi-projection cinema with an immersive 270-degree field of view, and its multi-sensory 4DX theaters, which add motion, vibration, water, wind, snow, lightning, scents and other special effects to movies that are unfolding on screen. The company is headquartered in Seoul with international offices in Los Angeles and Beijing.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” made $28 million of gross box office on its opening weekend in mainland China. That was a solid result in present circumstances, rather than an overwhelming one. The film easily displaced two of the weaker Chinese titles that had been released a week earlier to take advantage of the five-day May Day holiday season. “Born to Fly,” a patriotic action adventure about Chinese test pilots, nose-dived by 75% as it fell from a $40 million first place debut to a $11.2 million third-placed second flap. Its cumulative after two weekends is $77.3 million, according to weekend data from consultancy Artisan Gateway.

last month’s momentum going with strong audience reception that should allow James Gunn’s final MCU film to leg out in theaters. With $38.9 million grossed from 4,405 locations on Saturday, “Guardians Vol. 3” beat industry projections and may do so again on Sunday, possibly allowing it to get to a final weekend total closer to $120 million when actual totals are reported on Monday.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” the conclusion to Marvel’s trilogy about an intergalactic crew of misfits, kicked off with $114 million in its domestic box office debut. Those ticket sales rank as the second-biggest opening weekend of the year, behind “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” with $146 million. Despite the towering figure, the film ever-so-slightly missed expectations of $120 million and arrived considerably behind its predecessor, 2017’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” with $146 million. It’s a jump on the first “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which introduced the world to Chris Pratt’s Star Lord and his friends and opened to $94 million in 2014.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Twenty emerging producers from across Europe have been selected to take part in European Film Promotion’s promotion and networking platform Producers on the Move before and during the Cannes Film Festival. The producers who were selected for the program from nominations submitted by EFP’s member organizations are Gentian Koçi (Albania), David Bohun (Austria), Julie Esparbes (Belgium), Vanya Rainova (Bulgaria), Miljenka Čogelja (Croatia), Stelana Kliris (Cyprus), Alice Tabery (Czech Republic), Emile Hertling Péronard (Denmark), Emilia Haukka (Finland), Silvana Santamaria (Germany), Vicky Miha (Greece), Júlia Berkes (Hungary), Kathryn Kennedy (Ireland), Valon Bajgora (Kosovo), Dominiks Jarmakovičs (Latvia), Erik Glijnis (The Netherlands), Elisa Fernanda Pirir (Norway), Radu Stancu (Romania), Juraj Krasnohorský (Slovak Republic), and Julia Gebauer (Sweden).

The Grateful Dead are set to share a series of previously unreleased concerts from 1973 in a new limited-edition boxset.Named Here Comes Sunshine 1973, the boxset will be comprised of 17 CDs, and feature audio from the group’s shows in San Francisco, Santa Barbara and two shows in Washington D.C.The concerts took place between May 13 and June 10, and remained unreleased up until now.Discussing the upcoming release, legacy manager David Lemieux described why the year was so important in the band’s career: “In my early tape-trading days, I only had a few 1973 shows, but my goodness, did I ever love them. There was a fresh, nimble feel that was entirely different from the 1972 Dead sound taking all of the great elements of the Year of Europe and building upon that excellence.”He continued: “Even with hundreds of tapes at my fingertips, I returned to these 1973 shows frequently.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Born to Fly,” an action movie about the prowess of the Chinese air force and the bravery of its aviators, topped the China box office chart over a weekend that led into the nearly week-long May Day holiday. Data from consultancy Artisan Gateway shows the film earned $44 million (RMB279 million) between Friday and Sunday. The weekend as a whole brought in $121 million of turnstile revenue, the fourth highest weekend of the year and weaker only than the three “revenge spending” weekends that drove the Chinese New Year period in January and early February.

quarterly earnings report.Imax reported quarterly revenue of $86.9 million and earnings of $5.1 million or 4 cents per share on a diluted basis and 16 cents per share on an adjusted basis. That beat Wall Street projections of $77.5 million in revenue and adjusted EPS of 15 cents per share, according to analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Paul Mescal has made his music debut with the release of an original song, Slide Away, from his new film Carmen.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The highly-anticipated Japanese animated feature film “The First Slam Dunk” dominated the mainland China cinema box office in its opening weekend. It broke multiple records as it did so. The film scored $38.5 million (RMB266 million) over the Friday to Sunday weekend, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. However, it opened on Thursday, a day earlier than is the norm in China, and has accumulated $55.2 million over the opening four-day frame. The film is based on IP that is well-known to a generation of comic book fans and TV audiences in China (early middle-aged men were reported to have been particularly interested) and has already proved a hit in other parts of Asia. (Comscore estimates that the film has grossed $211 million worldwide.)