Lucasfilm
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny may have had a muted start in North America with a $60 million box office price, but in China, where moviegoers have little to no emotional connection to the classic adventure franchise, the film was a resounding success .
Expectations for the Disney-Lucasfilm leader have always been low in China, but the film’s $2.3 million Friday-Sunday premiere falls on the low end of most analysts’ already low projections. None of the first four films in the Indiana Jones series were distributed in China, so the country’s geriatric millennials – let alone Gen Z and below – harbor no nostalgia for Harrison Ford’s octogenarian hero.
Dial of Destiny enjoyed relatively high popularity among those who watched and rated it in China. It currently has respectable social scores of 8.8 on ticketing app Maoyan, 8.9 on Alibaba’s Taopiao, and 7.3 on Douban. Still, Maoyan predicts that the film will take the top spot in China at just $3.8 million. With a whopping $295 million pre-release production budget, Dial of Destiny is the most expensive US studio to have performed so poorly in China.
Local Chinese hits took the top spot at the box office over the weekend. This continued the growing trend of domestic films far outpacing imported Hollywood films in the market.
Produced and written by local hitmaker Chen Sicheng (“Detective Chinatown”), mystery thriller “Lost in the Stars” continued to dominate its second weekend, surpassing its opening hit with grossing $116.8 million, according to Artisan Gateway from Friday to Sunday. After 11 days on screens, the film, distributed by Alibaba Pictures, has grossed a whopping $319.6 million. Maoyan predicts it will gross over $450 million.
Second place went to “Never Say Never”, directed and starring by Wang Baoqiang (“Detective Chinatown”, “Lost in Thailand”). The inspirational fighting film is based on a true story about a retired Chinese armed policeman who opened a mixed martial arts club in Sichuan province, where he trained orphaned children to become master fighters. The film doesn’t technically hit theaters until July 6, but it received extensive “preview screenings” and grossed $25.6 million over the weekend for a total of $38.9 million so far.
“Love Never Ends,” an elder romance starring veteran actors Ni Dahong, Kara Wai, Tony Leung and Ye Tong, slipped to third place with $10.7 million. After two frames, the grand total is $45 million, which is quite a sum given the subject matter.
Local titles will have free reign in China for the next two weeks until Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One launches on July 14th.