It took 58 days, but China‘s local summer blockbuster, Monster Hunt, has now overtaken Universal’s Furious 7 to become the highest-grossing film ever at the Middle Kingdom box office. Furious 7‘s milestone was set with a run that lasted only 30 days. State news agency Xinhua, citing industry watchdog SAPPRFT, today says Monster Hunt‘s total sales as of yesterday exceeded 2.428B yuan. Furious 7‘s local currency haul was 2.426B yuan. In today’s dollars, Monster Hunt‘s take is $380.99M versus what would have been $380.67M for Furious 7. That’s reflective of market fluctuations over the past few months: when F7 ended its China run in mid-May, the conversion from the yuan came to $391.2M.
Furious 7 was released in the Middle Kingdom on April 12 and had, within two weeks, bested the previous all-time record holder Transformers: Age Of Extinction. That film had outperformed Avatar in 2014 to hold the title for a little less than a year. Monster Hunt is now the first Chinese film crowned box office champ in the 21 years since the market re-opened to foreign films.
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Hailing from legendary producer Bill Kong and Shrek franchise veteran helmer Raman Hui, Monster Hunt‘s latest record is impressive — it became the top-grossing Chinese movie ever in July. The CGI/live-action adventure pic is set in an ancient and magical world where the story centers on the race to protect a baby monster who is the subject of great envy. FilmRise is releasing in the U.S. in early 2016.
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There are a couple of things worth noting, however. Monster Hunt opened during the unofficial summer blackout period where there is no competition from Hollywood movies which are sidelined to help boost local market share. When Hollywood movies do play in the market, they are, in all but rare cases, allotted a 30-day run. Monster Hunt has been on release since July 16 and still has five more days to go before leaving cinemas on September 17. That’s the same day that Korea’s No. 1 film of 2015, Assassination, enters the market.
The first two Hollywood films allowed back into the Middle Kingdom post-blackout were Paramount/Skydance’s Terminator: Genisys (approx $112M after 20 days) and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (approx $53M in 4). Up next is Universal’s Minions which bows tomorrow. After that, Sony’s Pixels releases on September 15. The close proximity of dates suggests China is keener than ever to maintain a gap between local and Hollywood market share.
Xinhua earlier this week reported that China’s 2015 box office had already exceeded the 2014 total of 29.6B yuan ($4.6B). Chinese movies were worth 60% of the total.
Do foreign countries complain about how their movies are not shown in the US? Yet Hollywood’s complaint in China is how their movies don’t get shown as long as domestics. China has every right to protect its movie industry. Yeah you’re not going to say it out loud but we know Hollywood wants absolute control over foreign box offices where they would only allow their movies and no one else’s to be shown. That’s why we hear all the complaining about Hollywood’s access to China. China nor any other country gets that access in the US. This is like that Texas politician that called on all Chinese to change their names and language to English so it would be easier for herself. Fan Bing Bing was named in Forbes as the 4th highest paid actress in the world. People now are saying who’s Fan Bing Bing? Exactly and I bet there are people angry about that too. Only Hollywood actresses are allowed to make that much. Did I just make an absurd comment? Yeah like there wasn’t any anger about how Terminator Genysis might have a sequel now because of how much money it made in China. Only in the US were people complain about trade imbalances with other countries where they will complain when a Hollywood movie makes more money in another country than theirs.
Your opinion might make sense if it wasn’t for the fact that the market in overwhelmingly wanting Hollywood produced films in China while there is almost zero market in the U.S. For wide theatrical releases for any foreign film. That’s just facts. Also, Hollywood is ‘complaining’ about the market, they are highly concerned about manipulation of said market?
You’re wrong. The domestic industry that produced Monster Hunt was born from Hollywood gloating that Hollywood made better films. The Hollywood media was bragging and literally on the turn of the dime domestic movies started beating Hollywood movies. Why do you think there’s all this talk of Hollywood catering to China? That was because domestic movies a few years ago started to beat Hollywood movies opening the same week. If what you say is true, why did Tomorrowland fail in the Chinese box office if you think all Hollywood movies do well in China? Why did Monuments Men fail? Why wasn’t Jupiter Rising saved by China like Terminator Genisys was? Why is Disney desperate to market Star Wars in China? Rogue One has two actors that are Chinese. Is it because the prequels didn’t make much money in China? These blackout periods are a recent event. Manipulation is why foreign movies don’t do well in the US. That’s why when there is a good foreign movie, Hollywood just remakes it with American actors so they can just pay a license while keeping all the profits. Where’s all the money that China makes from Americans watching their movies. Talk about trade imbalance.
In other words, Furious Seven would have made more than this crap had it been in the market for longer than 30 days