Blockbuster war drama to extend screening

Chinese war drama The Eight Hundred, which has grossed over 2.67 billion yuan ($391 million) at home so far, is set to extend its box-office run by a month until Oct 21.

This means the top-grossing feature in the summer movie season will join the competition during the upcoming National Day holiday, when major films like the comedy My People, My Homeland and the long-awaited animated film Legend of Deification will be released.

The Eight Hundred continues to smash records at the box office since its release on Aug 21, about one month after theaters reopened in the world's second-largest movie market following months of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of Monday morning, The Eight Hundred had raked in over 2.67 billion yuan in China, according to data compiled by Beacon, a movie-ticketing and film-data platform.

The week-long National Day holiday last year proved a lucrative season, contributing 5 billion yuan to China's annual box office of over 64 billion yuan.

Similar to the 2019 blockbuster My People, My Country that also debuted around National Day, the upcoming My People, My Homeland adopts a storytelling technique of collective creation－one film contains multiple stories by different directors.

Comprising five stories, My People, My Homeland has Zhang Yimou, one of the best-known Chinese filmmakers, as the executive producer, and Ning Hao as the general director.

Legend of Deification is produced by the companies behind last year's box-office champion, Ne Zha, which grossed more than 5 billion yuan in the country. The feature film tells the story of Jiang Ziya, a genius strategist from the novel Fengshen Yanyi (The Investiture of the Gods) of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Leap, which puts the spotlight on the Chinese women's national volleyball team, is slated for release on Sept 25. It is directed by Peter Ho-sun Chan and stars actress Gong Li.

Xinhua