Homegrown smash hits

Weekly takings reach 1.76b yuan as 5.1 million flock to see made-in-China movies

The boom at China's multiplexes is almost taken for granted, but it is not every week that several records are shattered - and by three domestic releases.

The weekly box office gross of 1.76 billion yuan ($283.36 million) for July 13 to 19 is a record, and a tidal wave of moviegoers over the weekend meant that many theaters reported full capacity.

The sight of swarming crowds outside the nation's cinemas, and even occasional scalpers, was something not witnessed since the early 1980s.

The attendance from July 13 to 19 was 5.1 million people, which is the highest since 2000. However, it may not be a record because cinemas attracted huge audiences in the 1980s when ticket prices were a fraction of what they are now.

July 18 saw receipts of 420 million yuan and Sunday brought in 402 million, surpassing the single-day benchmark of 383 million yuan set only three months earlier. What truly surprised industry analysts was that two movies that debuted one day apart both ended up as commercial and critical winners. Monster Hunt grossed 662 million yuan in its first four days, while Jian Bing Man generated 427 million yuan in its first three days.

"This could not have happened four or five years ago," said Suo Yabin, a professor of film studies at Communication University of China. "Now the market can accommodate two or three hit movies at once."

Monkey King: Hero Is Back was the week's third winner. In its second week of release, it raked in 370 million yuan, adding to its first-week take to reach a total of 467 million yuan and making it the new champion of domestic animated movies.

All three movies received favorable reactions from critics and the public alike, in sharp contrast to previous hits that were deemed to be pandering to an unsophisticated audience.

The movies all have rags-to-riches back stories. Monkey King, in its first week, was squeezed by two youth-oriented features with supersized built-in audiences - Tiny Times 4 and Forever Young - to less than 10 percent of screens. It was saved and turned into a sleeper hit by word-of-mouth alone.

raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 07/24/2015 page28)