News

Exclusive: Natasha Liu Bordizzo (The Society) has been cast as a lead opposite Rosario Dawson in the Disney+ limited series Star Wars: Ahsoka, a spinoff from the streamer’s hit series The Mandalorian, I have learned. I hear Bordizzo will be taking on the character of Sabine Wren from the Star Wars Rebels animated series. Reps from Lucasfilm and Bordizzo did not return emails seeking comment.

Dawson stars as Ahsoka Tano in the limited series after making the Star Wars: Clone Wars and Rebels character’s live-action debut in The Mandalorian. The offshoot, written by Dave Filoni and executive produced by Filoni and Jon Favreau, will continue Ahsoka’s story.

No additional information about the new series has been released by Lucasfilm, but there has been a lot of online speculation that key characters from Rebels such as Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger would join Ahsoka in the new show.

Most Notorious Chinese Blockbusters Of All Time

Are you a fan of Chinese films? If so, you are probably familiar with the country’s notorious blockbusters. The Chinese film industry reportedly grossed $12.8 billion in 2018, compared to the $60.1 billion reported by the global movie industry. Like the US film industry, the China film industry took a big hit from the Covid-19 pandemic. The country was forced to close around 2,300 land-based cinemas in response to the Covid-19 shutdown. This is not to mention, the country also shut down film production to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Chinese officials have called for the reopening of land-based cinemas across the country. The country’s film market is expected to fully recover, but no one really knows how long it will take. China has some of the world’s highest-grossing movies of all time. Learn more about some of the country’s...

Prolific film producer Shawn Xiang Yue (“Detective Chinatown 3”) today announced the launch of his newly minted U.S. production banner, Bamboo Curtain, which will be fully capitalized by and operate under Yue’s Beijing-based Goshfilm Inc. Determined to bolster international talent both in front of and behind the camera, Yue is behind some of China’s top grossing box office hits, most recently “Detective Chinatown 3” which has set global benchmarks and currently sits at $680m following its February 21st release.

Bamboo Curtain will focus on creating a conduit between the U.S. and Chinese entertainment industries through global and commercially viable content. The company will hire talent in the U.S. and aggregate content in the U.S. for China, allowing both sides to benefit from the booming Chinese market and acting as a transitional hub. The company will provide a space for talent to work on productions between China and the U.

Exclusive: Shawn Xiang Yue, one of the producers of Chinese box office juggernaut franchise Detective Chinatown, is launching U.S. production banner Bamboo Curtain.

Yue has just produced Detective Chinatown 3, which currently sits at $680M globally. He also produced Detective Chinatown 2, and Chinese box office hit Go Away Mr Tumor, which was selected as China’s entry for the 88th Academy Awards. He previously served as Head of International Business Affairs at Wanda Media where he co-produced films including Police Story and Man of Taichi.

The new LA-based firm will be capitalized by and operate under Yue’s Beijing-based firm Goshfilm.

The focus of the new company, Yue tells us, is to create a conduit between the U.S. and Chinese industries by making projects that can work in both markets. Yue has lived and worked in both countries so is well-placed to help creators navigate the legal...

Despite the ongoing trade war and frostier than ever ties between China and the U.S., “Detective Chinatown 3” producer and financier Shawn Yue (aka Yue Xiang) is still betting on collaboration in the film industry — though perhaps not in the way you’d expect.

Chinese production budgets and visual ambitions have lately begun to outgrow China’s ability to achieve them, given the country’s lack of existing talent and resources to execute such projects. While it might still be cheaper to shoot smaller productions in China, films budgeted over $20 million are actually cheaper to shoot in the U.S., Yue attests.

“It’s weird — if you want to make anything, you outsource it to China, but if you want to make a film, now is a good time to outsource to the U.S.,” says Yue, one of 18 listed producers and “co-producers” for “Detective Chinatown 3” who says...

The mega-successful Chinese franchise about a mismatched detective duo tackling baffling crimes in foreign destinations continues with a wildly uneven caper set in Tokyo. With performances, plotting and visuals amped up to 11 as per usual, this hyperactive combination of Sherlock Holmes-type sleuthing and Three Stooges-style slapstick comedy offers plenty of zany fun, but the central murder-mystery contains so many convoluted diversions, digressions and detours it makes the whole enterprise play like a long stream-of-consciousness sketch with a glaringly hollow core.

A smash hit domestically after opening on Feb. 12 in the Chinese New Year season, “Detective Chinatown 3” has grossed $667 million in the three weeks since. U.S. distributor Warner Bros. Pictures has yet to announce specific release details following the Covid-19 enforced postponement of the film’s planned global rollout on January 24, 2020. Earning its place in history with the highest opening-day gross of any film in a single market ($163 million...

With presumed Western blockbusters such as Black Widow, No Time to Die, and The Eternals delayed until later this year, the rambunctious Detective Chinatown franchise has leaped into the void in a very, very big way. Few, if any movies have ever raked in so much coin in so little time.

The figures speak for themselves: The third entry in the rambunctious and goofy Chinese action series featuring an oddball cop team of a young brainiac and a reckless wild man set an all-time box-office record with a three-day opening weekend haul of $398 million, leading to an opening week total of $621 million.

Among other benchmark achievements were ticket pre-sales of $150 million and an opening day take of $163 million. And all this was achieved even with theater capacity restrictions of 50 and sometimes 75 percent in some situations. After closing down early in 2020, cinemas in China reopened in July.

In tone and ambition,...

In the span of six days, the Chinese box office roared to a $1.2B Lunar New Year record, with Wanda Pictures’ Detective Chinatown 3 setting global benchmarks for the biggest opening day and weekend in a single market.

This happened even as some Covid restrictions remain in place in the Middle Kingdom. While the pandemic rages on in other parts of the world, how did DC3 achieve such unprecedented heights, and what does it mean for a backlog of Hollywood tentpoles that’s primed to hit China, global and, notably, domestic cinemas once the situation elsewhere is controlled?

Clearly, China has become synonymous with outsize grosses, and the Chinese New Year period is perennially lucrative. But this month’s performance hopefully serves as an indicator of recovery that will extend to other markets as they get back up and running with new product.

Indeed, the Cny numbers left some in Hollywood agog.

The third ‘Detective Chinatown’ film took $397m in China.

Detective Chinatown 3 stuns with $397m China debut

Wanda Pictures’ Detective Chinatown 3 has delivered the biggest ever opening weekend number in a single territory thanks to its $397m debut in China over the new year holiday weekend. That beats the Avengers: Endgame’s $357m North America launch in April 2019 – previously the biggest opening in a single market.

Detective Chinatown 3 has already overtaken the total box office for the first film in the series ($122m in 2015) and is well on the way to passing Detective Chinatown 2’s total haul...

China’s box office is primed for a sparkling Lunar New Year frame as new titles start rollout on Friday. As we noted this past Sunday, pre-sales had alread begun to pop, with threequel Detective Chinatown 3 in the lead. The film from Chen Sicheng as of 11:30Pm local time on Thursday had hit over Rmb 673M ($104M) in advance tickets for opening day Friday and more than Rmb 950M ($147M) for the first week, according to Maoyan.

Those figures exceed the advance sales performance of Disney/Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame which itself was a record-breaker in April 2019. Endgame debuted on a Wednesday in China and its ultimate day-one gross, including midnights, was Rmb 725M ($107.8M at historical rates/$112.3M today) — the biggest opening day ever in the market. Stripping out the midnights on Endgame, its first day was Rmb 538M. For reference, Monster Hunt 2 kicked off the Lunar...

More than 80% of movie tickets in China are sold online or via mobile device, one of the world’s highest penetration rates. That gives the country’s ticketing agencies unusually accurate insight into audience behavior and film tracking.

After the early part of last year was wiped out by the coronavirus, how strong is the theatrical industry’s recovery?

Liu Zhenfei, analyst at leading ticketing agency Maoyan ran his slide rule over the upcoming Chinese New Year peak season and shared his analysis with Variety.

Variety: What is Maoyan’s overall forecast for the Chinese New Year week’s box office? Higher or lower than in 2019?

Liu: The data from Maoyan “Want to Watch” reflects audience expectations for the upcoming films during the week-long Chinese New Year holiday. And it is encouraging. “Want to Watch” numbers for “Detective Chinatown 3” exceeded 4 million. No other film has generated more than 2 million “Want to Watch” clicks before.

Hong Kong’s highest grossing director, Dante Lam, will soon be releasing his next action-packed film, “The Rescue“. Arriving in theaters just in time for the holiday season, the film chronicles a Chinese rescue team’s death-defying mission to save survivors of a fiery offshore catastrophe. Comprised of men of women from various backgrounds and led by a maverick captain (played by heartthrob and action star Eddie Peng), the unit must set aside their differences to face escalating challenges across air, land and sea. In addition to Peng, the film’s ensemble cast includes Xin Zhilei (Crosscurrent) and Wang Yanlin (Operation Red Sea).

The Rescue is, to date, the largest Chinese film production set at sea. Many water scenes were filmed at Mexico’s Baja Studios facilities, which was first built in 1996 for James Cameron when he filmed his epic “Titanic.” The Rescue used the studios’ largest tank, which has...

Fox Entertainment streaming service Tubi announced a partnership with China’s Wanda Pictures on Monday, saying it will now stream at least two of the latter’s films in both Chinese-language and English-dubbed versions.

The headlining film in the deal is Wanda’s “Detective Chinatown 2,” which currently reigns as China’s sixth-highest grossing movie of all time thanks to $541 million in local receipts. The title grossed a mere $2 million in North America. A second title is “The King’s Avatar: For the Glory,” an anime pic set in the competitive world of esports that grossed $12 million in China the summer of 2019 and has not released theatrically in any other territories. Both films will soon be available on the Tubi platform in the U.S. and Canada. The latter animated title will also be available in Spanish in the U.S. and Mexico.

“We are thrilled to be aligning with Wanda...

Tubi has begun a content relationship with Chinese film and television studio Wanda Pictures, with two titles coming to the Fox-owned free streaming outlet.

Original and exclusive English-dubbed versions of Detective Chinatown 2, which is No. 6 on China’s all-time box office chart, will be on Tubi soon in the U.S. and Canada. Anime film The King’s Avatar: For the Glory, which is set in the esports world, will also be on Tubi in the U.S. and Canada. A Spanish-language dubbed version will be available in the U.S. and Mexico.

No further details about the overall content deal were included in Monday’s announcement.

“We are thrilled to be aligning with Wanda Pictures as we look to expand our offering with storytelling from international territories,” Tubi content chief Adam Lewinson said.

Detective Chinatown 2, written and directed by Chen Sicheng and starring Wang Baoqiang, Liu Haoran,...

As China rushes to lockdown the deadly coronavirus epidemic, which has claimed at least 25 lives and infected more than 800 people, thousands of the country’s cinemas have been forced to close their doors.

Yesterday, all local film releases scheduled for the highly lucrative Chinese New Year holiday were pulled by distributors. In response, widespread cinema closures are being reported. At the time of writing, it wasn’t clear how many of the country’s roughly 70,000 screens across 10,000 venues had shuttered, but it stands to reason that few will remain open without the key product available.

According to a source, no directive has been served at state level, but provincial-level governments have advised closing, and all of the major cinema owners in China including Ume, Wanda, Jinyi, Bona, Emperor, and Lumiere have announced that they are shutting their venues for four days from today.

As Deadline reported yesterday, the closures could...

In celebration of the Chinese New Year, Warner Bros. Pictures will invite audiences throughout the U.S. and Canada to experience the newest chapter in the hugely popular international franchise with the domestic theatrical release of “Detective Chinatown 3.” The action-comedy-mystery sequel is set to open in more than 150 theaters and limited IMAX engagements in major cities across North America, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Toronto and Vancouver, on January 24, 2020, day-and-date with the film’s much-anticipated release in China by Wanda Pictures. “Detective Chinatown 3” is one of the widest releases among all Mandarin language films in North America in recent years.

Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran reprise their roles as a mismatched crime-solving duo in the film, again written and directed by Chen Sicheng. Set in Tokyo, where the pair embarks on their latest misadventure, the film also features Thai martial arts superstar Tony Jaa...

Warner Bros. Pictures has confirmed details of its wide specialty release of “Detective Chinatown 3” in North America. The film will reach American theaters on Jan. 24, coinciding with a huge outing handled by Wanda Pictures in China at the beginning of Chinese New Year (aka Spring Festival).

The mainland Chinese-produced franchise movie is pitched as an action-comedy-mystery sequel that is once again written and directed by Chen Sicheng. Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran reprise their roles as a mismatched crime-solving duo. Third time out, the action shifts to Tokyo, after previous excursions to Thailand and New York.

Warner reports that it will open the film “in more than 150 theaters and limited IMAX engagements in major cities across North America, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Toronto and Vancouver.”

Releases of most Chinese films in North America target the Chinese diaspora, rather than crossover audiences. And they...

Exclusive: Detective Chinatown 3, the latest installment in the hugely successful Chinese action-comedy franchise, has scored UK and Ireland distribution after producer Wanda Pictures struck a deal with Brit outfit Trinity Cineasia.

The film is set to be released in China by Wanda on January 25, which is Chinese New Year, typically one of the country’s biggest-grossing days at the box office. In 2019, the holiday set a single-day record for box office in the territory, with China’s cinemas collecting $216m in grosses.

Warner Bros is releasing the film in China on the same date, and Trinity will now day-and-date release the film in the UK concurrently.

Between them, the first two Detective Chinatown films grossed more than $660m in China alone, with the second film responsible for more than $540m of that total in 2018. Results abroad have been less remarkable, though Detective Chinatown 2 did take close to $2m...

Tiffcom’s China Day comprised a series of seminars and a networking event and follows the signing of a China-Japan co-production agreement last year.

Japan’s Sedic International is in talks to remake Uberto Pasolini’s Still Life as a Sino-Japan collaboration, one of many projects currently being discussed between Japan and China as the two Asian powers explore ways of working together.

The remake was flagged up during Tiffcom’s China Day, which comprised a series of seminars, presentations and a networking event, and follows the signing of an official co-production agreement between China and Japan in May 2018.

Sedic...

The numbers always dazzle in China.

The country has more than 60,000 movie screens, the most of any nation on Earth, almost all built within the last 10 years. It boasts more paid subscribers to streaming-video services than the rest of the globe combined, and Netflix doesn’t even operate there. It’s home to the world’s largest number of internet users — at least 800 million, roughly two and a half times the entire U.S. population — and all but 2% of them access the web via mobile, making for the greatest penetration of mobile payment use. More than 90% of movie tickets are sold online.

The market potential of China’s 1.4 billion people has long held Western companies in thrall, leaving them drooling over even the smallest slice of the action. That includes the burgeoning entertainment sector, where Hollywood and rising local players are jockeying to attract Chinese consumers whose spending power and...

China’s internet is thrilled by news that Marvel appears to be insisting on casting an ethnic Chinese actor as Shang-Chi in the master of kung fu’s own spinoff film and has begun scouting out candidates for the role.

Variety reporter Justin Kroll tweeted Sunday that Marvel is apparently “putting out test offers for a group of men in their 20s” for its “Shang-Chi” movie. He added that the studio has “been adamant to reps offering up their clients for the role” that candidates “have to be of Chinese ancestry,” with no other Asian ancestry accepted.

Twitter is blocked on China’s highly censored internet, but that hasn’t stopped the tweet from going viral in the mainland. Users have screen-grabbed it and spread it on China’s parallel Weibo platform, where the hashtag “Shang-Chi casting” has since been viewed 100 million times, and the hashtag “Marvel’s first Chinese...

‘The Naked Wanderer’

Alan Lindsay’s The Naked Wanderer, a romantic comedy starring Angus McLaren, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Megan Hajjar and John Cleese, will have its world premiere at CinefestOZ.

Scripted by Callan Durlik and backed by the Wa government’s Royalties for Regions program, the film shot on the state’s South West coast will premiere in Bunbury on August 30.

It’s the first film announced for the festival which will run from August 28 to September 1 in Bunbury, Busselton, Margaret River and surrounds.

McLaren plays Jake, who decides to walk 4,000 km up the coast of Western Australia, clad only in a loin cloth. His purpose ostensibly is to raise money for charity but his ulterior motive is to win back his former girlfriend Jasmine (Hajjar), who jilted him.

Durlik is his best mate Cameron King, whose uncle is UK-based media mogul Brian King (Cleese). Brian offers to sponsor the...

China’s Wanda Pictures will attend Cannes’ Marche du Film this year with four new projects, including “Detective Chinatown 3,” the latest installment in the lucrative franchise.

Last year’s “Detective Chinatown 2” debuted in the competitive Chinese New Year period and brought in $496 million (RMB3.39 billion) to become the country’s fifth-highest-grossing title of all time. The third installment is scheduled to hit theaters on the first day of next year’s lunar near year holiday, on Jan. 25, 2020. It is being directed by Chen Sicheng, who did the first two films, and once again stars Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran, who are this time joined by Satoshi Tsumabuki.

Also on Wanda’s slate is a remake of the Indian thriller “Drishyam,” which was made in 2013 in the Malayalam language, the official tongue of Kerala state, and then remade in Hindi in 2015. The Hindi-language version earned $16 million worldwide. It tells the...

Only a couple years ago, amid the rise of new media players like Netflix and a dip in the U.S. theatrical market, doomsayers began predicting that the big-screen experience had entered its endgame. But after one of the most astonishing weeks in box office history, the upcoming gathering in Cannes of film lovers and executives from around the world is taking on the air of movie-industry avengers assembling.

The colossal haul of “Avengers: Endgame” ($1.5 billion and counting) follows a second consecutive record year at the global box office, which raked in $41.1 billion in 2018. With more big-budget films set to hit multiplexes in the coming months, 2019 could extend that streak.

In good news for the domestic industry, the North American total of $11.9 billion also shattered the previous record. But 2018 offered further evidence that, far from being gravy, international takings are fast becoming the meant for Hollywood’s tentpoles, and even...

John Cleese on the set of ‘The Naked Wanderer’

When Callan Durlik wrote the character of a media mogul in romantic comedy The Naked Wanderer, he thought of John Cleese but doubted the Fawlty Towers star would be gettable.

With the enthusiasm of a first-time feature writer-producer, Durlik sent a synopsis to Cleese, who then asked to see the script.

Two days later Cleese was in. The Perth-based writer subsequently spent two days with the Englishman in his London office, workshopping lines and bouncing ideas.

He filmed all his scenes in London, playing Brian King, the uncle of Cameron King (Durlik), whose best mate Jake (Angus McLaren) decides to walk 4,000 km up the coast of Western Australia, clad only in a loin cloth.

Jake’s purpose ostensibly is to raise money for charity but his ulterior motive is to win back his former girlfriend Jasmine (Megan Hajjar), who jilted him.

China, midnight Tuesday. That’s when Avengers: Endgame begins to rumble around the world, box office wise. The film industry waits with bated breath for what should be a colossal opening. In some distribution hallways around town, people are talking a $300M domestic opening and a –gasp– $1 billion worldwide start. Mind-boggling. Even if the Anthony and Joe Russo-directed sequel misses that mark, some forecast that Endgame could make $1.5 billion through its first 10 days. With the exception of Russia, which releases on Monday April 29, Endgame will go out everywhere day-and-date internationally beginning Wednesday. U.S./Canada starts off at 6 Pm on Thursday. If Endgame is going to hit a $1 billion global weekend opening, what would need to happen as we understand is that China or the U.S. (or both) would need to overperform. $300M-plus apiece would be amazing, but should the U.S. hit $270M (and no less) and China overindexes to $310M,...

“Bohemian Rhapsody” (20th Century Fox – its final blockbuster) has passed $900 million in total gross worldwide. That makes it the sixth-biggest 2018 release overall — placing it ahead of recent hits like “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “Batman v. Superman,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2.” The film’s final push came from its current modest play in China.

It also is #4 among 2018 releases in foreign sales. At $685 million, it stands behind only “Avengers: Infinity War,” “Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom,” and “Aquaman” in popularity. That remarkable placement makes it the most surprising success of last year. Let’s look at some of the unusual aspects of its reception.

Foreign Made It a Massive Hit

“Bohemian Rhapsody” certainly was a domestic success, with a $216 million gross that makes it the 10th biggest film of 2018. It’s also the lowest North American number among the very top international hits. As of now, “Rhapsody” scored 76% of its take overseas.

Wanda Film Holdings has obtained approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission to acquire Wanda Media, Chinese media reports said, indicating that Dalian Wanda’s long-planned restructuring of its entertainment division at last has the green light to proceed. Wanda Film resumed trading on the Shenzhen stock exchange on Thursday.

Wanda Film Holdings is a subsidiary of the conglomerate led by Wang Jianlin, once the wealthiest man in China. It previously focused just on operating cinemas. The acquisition of more content production-focused Wanda Media will consolidate production, distribution and exhibition aspects of the company’s business into one entity.

Wanda Film began trying to restructure back in May 2016, and since then has announced three different overhaul plans. In the latest iteration, the company said it would purchase 95.77% of Wanda Media shares from 21 other parties, including Wanda Investment, for a sum of RMB10.5 billion ($1.56 billion).

The regulatory commission, known as the Csrc,...

Frant Gwo’s big-budget sci-fi has dominated Chinese New Year period.

After the end of the prime Chinese New Year holidays, the Chinese box office began to cool down with a 45% week-on-week contraction in the week of Feb 11-17. But the good news is the ticket sales in February are set to top the figures in the same month last year, which held the world record for the biggest single month in a single market.

While the Chinese New Year titles still dominated the box office with the top three positions remained unchanged from the week before, the new releases...

This week, China rings in the New Year, and as annual tradition has it, multiplexes will be stuffed with new local titles vying for big business during the lucrative holiday period. Of the more than 10 pictures releasing Tuesday, among the most anticipated are epic The Wandering Earth, which could be the breakout that ignites the homegrown sci-fi business; racing-themed comedy Pegasus from multi-talent Han Han; and Peppa Pig Celebrates Chinese New Year, based on the hugely popular kids character.

Check out The Wandering Earth‘s trailer above, and the others’ and more, below.

The Wandering Earth and Pegasus were the only films that held press screenings in the Middle Kingdom, and only the former had sneaks tonight, before tomorrow’s holiday begins in earnest. It grossed an estimated Rmb 14M ($2.08M), setting a new record for Chinese movies. But this is a wait-and-see game: With so much choice, alongside family commitments,...

International box office ticked up 1% over 2017 to a record $29.8 billion, helping to drive worldwide moviegoing up 2.7% to a new high-water mark of $41.7 billion. Most of the global increase came from North America, which surged 7% to $11.9 billion. “Avengers: Infinity War” became the seventh film to gross more than $1 billion internationally, with $1.37 billion. In all, 40 foreign titles hit the top 100 (23 of them from China), led by “Operation Red Sea” with more than $611 million — good enough for the sixth spot on the year’s international chart.

Rank Title (Distrib) Domestic B.O. 1. Avengers: Infinity War (Disney) $1,369,544,150 2. Jurassic World: … Kingdom (U) $891,740,973 3. Black Panther (Disney) $648,313,144 4. Venom (Sony) $642,239,919 5. Incredibles 2 (Disney) $634,164,141 6. Operation Red Sea^ (China) $611,516,097 7. Aquaman* (WB) $602,041,078 8. Mission: Impossible — Fallout (Par) $570,956,000 9. Detective Chinatown 2 (China) $530,160,486 10. Bohemian Rhapsody* (Fox) $519,253,170 11. Fantastic Beasts: … Grindelwald* (WB) $470,900,000 12. Dying to Survive^ (China) $463,140,547 13. Ready Player One (WB) $443,300,000 14. Deadpool 2 (Fox) $418,042,433 15. Ant-Man and the Wasp (Disney) $406,000,000 16. The Meg (WB) $384,400,000 17. Hello Mr. Billionaire^ (China...

Winter is here for the Chinese entertainment industry, a half-dozen top-tier industry professionals concurred in Beijing at the launch last week of Tencent Entertainment’s annual data-filled white paper.

China’s box office hit new heights in 2018, raking in about $9 billion, but it was also a year of drastic regulatory changes and a government tax crackdown that have spooked investors and put projects across the country on hold.

“Why call this period a ‘cold winter’? In 2018, 20 film and TV companies saw RMB160 billion of stock market value evaporate, while eight saw their valuation fall by more than 50%. The departure of capital has also made the entire film industry encounter unprecedented difficulties,” said Bona Film Group CEO Yu Dong, who was present to receive an award for “trending movie figure of the year.” Bona-backed “Operation Red Sea” was the top film at the Chinese box office last year, grossing more than $530 million (RMB3.65 billion).

Zhang Liyi,...

Cine Asia presents martial arts movie legend Donnie Yen in the action-packed Iceman: The Time Traveler, coming to digital download from 21st January!

Synopsis:

Frozen in time for 400 years, Ming Dynasty General He Ying wakes in modern China only to learn the terrible fate of his home village. Racing back to the past and battling old enemies, he fights to protect his family, his country and the woman he loves from invaders.

From the director of Young Bruce Lee, Iceman: The Time Traveler combines stunning special effects with exhilarating action and co-stars Wang Baoqiang and Simon Yam.

“Donnie Yen proves once again he is the master of modern action cinema” ★★★★ Action Flix

“Full of breath-taking visual effects and fight scenes” Action Reloaded

“A gasp-inducing spectacle brimming with thrills and adventure” Junsui Films

Cine Asia presents Iceman: The Time Traveler on Digital Download 21st January and on DVD...

China box office for 2018 rose 9% over 2017, reaching Rmb 60.98B ($8.87B), official figures now show. That’s a softer increase than the 13.5% we saw from 2016-2017, but is in keeping with the market’s target of Rmb 60B. Although there was no single behemoth breakout like 2017’s Wolf Warrior 2, a handful of local titles did enviable business with homegrown movies accounting for 62% of the total in a year that saw the Hollywood studios pinched.

Up ahead, as ever with this confounding yet coveted market, there are questions looming. Amid an anticipated local production slowdown, the industry is left wondering how Chinese authorities will balance a potential shortage of homegrown titles against a tantalizing crop of Hollywood imports — all while maintaining a 50%+ cut of market share.

Among the local winners in 2018 were patriotic title Operation Red Sea ($576M and conveniently timed for February’s Chinese New Year period which fell just...

China’s total box office revenue grew 9% in 2018 to $8.87 billion (RMB60.98 billion). But the rate of expansion was slower rate than the year before, when it rose 13.5%, state media and government reports said. Nevertheless, the country met its government-set 2018 box office target of RMB60 billion yuan in ticket sales on December 29.

Chinese-language films brought in $5.53 billion (RMB37.8 billion) in 2018, making up 62% of the total box office, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing data from the country’s State Film Administration as saying. In 2017, Chinese films accounted for 54% of the box office. China produced 1,082 films in 2018, up from 970 the year before, though not all received theatrical releases.

China is the world’s second-largest theatrical movie market, and is widely expected to surpass the North American sector in coming years. However, the uneven growth of recent years has undone numerous past forecasts of when that might happen.

China now boasts the...

Local productions grossed $5.5bn (RMB37.9bn) for a 62.2% market share.

China’s box office reached $8.86bn (RMB60.98bn) in 2018, an increase of 9% compared to the RMB55.91bn taken the previous year, according to figures released today by the National Film Bureau.

Admissions increased by 6% to 1.72 billion over the course of the year, while the total number of screens grew by 9,033 to reach 60,079.

Local productions grossed $5.5bn (RMB37.88bn) for a 62.15% market share, an increase of 8.3% on the previous year. Among these, nine films grossed more than the $145m (RMB1bn) benchmark, while a further 20 titles took more than $73m (RMB...

Bi Gan’s art house drama “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is quickly turning into a blockbuster at the Chinese box office, and the movie hasn’t even opened in theaters yet. According to China.org, “Long Day’s Journey” has already earned 100 million yuan (equivalent to $15 million) in presale tickets with six days left before release, which is more than recent blockbusters such as “Avengers: Infinity War,” “The Mermaid,” and “Detective Chinatown 2” earned at that point in their pre-release sales.

Box office analysts say at this rate the film could exceed 400 million yuan ($58 million) when it opens December 31. By comparison, “Avengers: Infinity War” opened in May with just over $50 million in ticket sales.

“Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is Bi Gan’s second directorial feature after “Kaili Blues” and bears no relation to the Eugene O’Neill play of the same title. The movie premiered at...

Updated with top film figures: IMAX has set itself a new milestone, crossing $1B at the 2018 worldwide box office. This is the first time in the company’s 50-year history that it has reached the benchmark. The group’s global tally, expected to be $1.002B by the end of today, was driven primarily by Hollywood blockbusters, but also includes another IMAX record with local-language pics accounting for more than $100M of the total.

Disney/Marvel movies lead the Hollywood pack with Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther the Nos. 1 and 2 earners. Warner Bros/DC’s Aquaman, currently at No. 6, is still in play and should reach No. 4 by December 31. On the local-language side, eight of the major titles hail from China, a market that regularly throws off strong returns for the large-format outfit. They include Operation Red Sea, Detective Chinatown 2 and Dying To Survive. (See below for the full Top 10 lists.

Sitting between the early fall festivals of Toronto and Venice and November’s American Film Market, Busan’s Asian Film Market is either badly timed or brilliantly positioned, depending on your point of view.

There is no doubt, however, that it plays host to a range of hidden gems, and allows buyers to get an early jump on a selection of key titles – both of the artistic and the commercial varieties.

Hong Kong’s Mandarin Entertainment is handling the festival’s big-budget ($28 million production cost) closing film, “Master Z: Ip Man Legacy,” with its starry cast including Dave Bautista, Michelle Yeoh and Tony Jaa. The company is also pre-selling its even bigger “Ip Man 4.” The budget is now confirmed at $52 million and pitches Asian superstar Donnie Yen against British action star Scott Adkins with delivery scheduled in 2019.

Another Hong Kong studio, Edko Films, is touting $40 million China-Australia co-production “The Whistleblower.

Zhang Yimou’s moody, monochromatic action drama “Shadow” is the strong favorite in the annual Golden Horse Awards race. The awards, operated from Taiwan, celebrate the best films in Chinese-language variants.

“Shadow,” which premiered in prestigious slots in the Venice and Toronto film festivals last month, collected 12 nominations. These included nominations for best film and for best director.

Taiwanese drama “Dear Ex,” about the manipulations revealed by a man’s altered will, collected the second-most nominations, with eight. The film premiered at the Udine festival in April and won several prizes at the Taipei festival in June. It is next set for festival play in Busan, and heads for commercial release next month. “Dying to Survive” collected seven nominations.

The five contenders for the best film prize are “Shadow,” “Dear Ex,” mainland Chinese hit “Dying to Survive,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” and “An Elephant Sitting Still,” which premiered...

“Operation Red Sea,” the most successful film of the year at the mainland Chinese box office, has been selected by Hong Kong as its contender in the foreign-language Oscars category.

The selection was made by the Federation of Motion Film Producers of Hong and announced on Monday.

A violent propaganda film in which the Chinese navy is mobilized to save a Chinese national held hostage in an unspecified African country, the film was directed on a $70 million budget by Hong Kong’s Dante Lam, credited on the picture as Lin Chaoxin.

The film was the come from behind hit of the crowded Chinese New Year period in February. It opened in third place with $72 million in its opening weekend, behind “Monster Hunt 2” and “Detective Chinatown 2.” But it went on to overtake both of them and score $576 million, the second highest figure ever achieved by a Chinese-language film.

It...

Cmc Pictures has picked up multi-territory rights to ‘Shadow,” the Zhang Yimou-directed action drama that premiered this week at the Venice Film Festival. The film continues its run this week at the Toronto Film Festival.

The China-based Cmc Pictures has acquired rights in Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South Africa in a deal with Los Angeles-based Bloom. Rights for North America, the U.K, Australia and New Zealand were previously licensed to WellGo USA.

A unit of Li Ruigang’s China Media Capital, Cmc Pictures has until now been better known as an investor and sales agent than a distributor. Other recent titles include “Wolf Warrior 2” and “Detective Chinatown 2.” “Cmc has established itself as a leader in the multi-territorial distribution of Chinese films,” said “Shadow” producer Ellen Eliasoph, president and CEO of Perfect Village Entertainment Group.

The film is set in an ancient period...

Broader range of local hits over the summer helped drive China box office to $6.79bn from Jan-Aug.

China’s box office grew by 17% to reach $6.79bn in the first eight months of 2018, following a summer in which Hollywood titles may have been sidelined, but local productions started to show greater depth and diversity.

According to figures from Chinese consulting firm EntGroup, local films grossed a combined $4.5bn (RMB30.42bn) during January-August 2018, an increase of 46% over the same period in 2017. This gave local films a market share of 66%, compared to 53% for the first eight months of last year (using current exchange rates). Based on these figures,...

China’s theatrical box office is running $1 billion ahead of last year, showing a gain of nearly 17% in the first months. That is despite an uneven summer period.

According to data from local consultancy and researcher Ent Group, Chinese cinema-goers spent $6.79 billion (including ticketing fees) in the first eight months of 2018. The figure compares with a like-for-like $5.79 billion in the same period of 2017.

The continuation of double-digit growth in 2018 puts the year-long stall, between July 2016 and June 2017, further in the past. That is good news for Chinese cinema operators who continue to add capacity. Ent Group data shows 57,300 screens in operation at the end of August, a 6% increase on the end-2017 figure of 53,900.

The summer period saw an 8% gain on last year with July and August together worth $2.03 billion, compared with $1.87 billion in 2017.

The summer season was characterized by a succession of hits and an equally important number of flops.

All of the top five titles of all time in China are now local Chinese-language films.

Dying To Survive performed a hat trick as the weekly champion in the period of July 16-22, but lost the weekend to new opener Skyscraper.

The social comedy drama, starring Xu Zheng, hung onto the top spot overall in its third week, adding $61.7m for $412.6m after 18 days. It has moved one notch up to become the fifth highest grossing film of all time in China, surpassing Furious 8. Now all the top five films are local Chinese-language films, with Furious 8 in sixth place.

The...

The comedy drama held off challengers including ‘Hidden Man’.

Dying To Survive continued to thrive at the Chinese box office in the period of Jul 9-15, as new opener Hidden Man failed to take it down from the top.

Dying To Survive maintained an astounding momentum in its second week and added $159.7m for $350.2m after 11 days. It has fast become the third highest grossing film of 2018, after Operation Red Sea and Detective Chinatown 2. It has also outpaced Monster Hunt and Fast And Furious 7 to become the sixth highest grossing film of all time in the territory.

But it...

The comedy drama held off challengers including ‘Hidden Man’.

Dying To Survive continued to thrive at the Chinese box office in the period of Jul 9-15, as new opener Hidden Man failed to take it down from the top.

Dying To Survive maintained an astounding momentum in its second week and added $159.7m for $350.2m after 11 days. It has fast become the third highest grossing film of 2018, after Operation Red Sea and Detective Chinatown 2. It has also outpaced Monster Hunt and Fast And Furious 7 to become the sixth highest grossing film of all time in the territory.

But it...

2018 is halfway over already, so now is a good moment to cast our eyes back over the last six months, and more specifically, the cinematic offerings that emerged from Asia. Traditionally the first half of the year tends to be weaker, and certainly most of the Chinese New Year offerings left plenty to be desired. Chen Kaige's Legend of the Demon Cat, Raman Hui's Monster Hunt 2, Soi Cheang's The Monkey King 3 and Chen Sicheng's Detective Chinatown 2 all managed to underwhelm, while the endless barrage of sub-par Japanese and Korean dramas and thrillers was as relentless as it was soul-crushing. That said, Korean offerings like Little Forest, Be With You and I Can Speak weren’t bad at all, while Colour...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Local blockbusters “Operation Red Sea” and “Detective Chinatown 2” powered the Chinese box office to its best-ever first six months of the year, with domestic productions accounting for nearly 60% of receipts, a significant increase from the same period last year.

According to the half-year industry report from China’s Ent Group, box office as of Friday for the first six months of 2018 totaled 31.6 billion yuan ($4.77 billion), with 889 million viewers, up more than 16% from the 27.2 billion yuan ($4.1 billion) recorded in the first half of 2017.

Domestic productions accounted for 18.8 billion yuan ($2.8 billion), or 59.6%, of the total. It was a huge increase from the 10.5 billion yuan ($1.59 billion) that accounted for 39% of total box office during the same period last year. Of the 40 movies released this year that have achieved more than 100 million yuan ($15 million), 18 were domestic productions.

The wild success of homegrown films was driven largely by military blockbuster “Operation Red Sea” and crime thriller “Detective Chinatown 2.

Trading in Wanda Film Holding Co was halted on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange last July with plans afoot “to acquire film-related assets,” the company said at the time. Now, Wanda is getting in gear. On Monday, Wanda Film, which is part of Wang Jianlin’s recently embattled Dalian Wanda Group and holds the conglomerate’s Chinese exhibition business, said it intends to purchase 96.83% of Wanda Media (alternately referred to as Wanda Television Media) which is the film production and distribution unit. The transaction price was listed at Rmb 11.62B ($1.77B).

In a Chinese regulatory filing, Wanda Film says its core business will be expanded to investment, production and distribution of movies and TV dramas, as well as the distribution and operation of online games and video IP and interactive platforms. The unit already includes Wanda’s 516 directly-operated cinemas with nearly 4,600 screens.

The Wanda-owned Legendary and AMC Entertainment are not part of the current proposal.