The Force is Strong for the Future of the ‘Star Wars’ Franchise in China
With only a few mere hours left before the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we hope that you've made it through the media and Internet frenzy of the past three weeks relatively unscathed from any potential spoilers. In preparation for the first midnight showings tonight, our content partners over at China Film Insider have written this piece on what the future holds for the Star Wars franchise in China.
From reading English-language media, one would expect “the force” to wake with as much power as it did three weeks ago in the rest of the world. Outlets such as Reuters and The Hollywood Reporter have delved into the online chatter and talked to the heads of major theater chains in reports predicting largely positive outcomes. However, the tone in mainland China has been more muted, especially in interior cities where the franchise comes nowhere near being the cultural phenomenon it is in other countries. When the original Star Wars released in 1977, China had just come out of a decade-long Cultural Revolution, when movie making stopped entirely, then restarted with a propaganda bent.
According to the real-time box office tracking app Cat’s Eye (猫眼), presales for The Force Awakens point to around RMB 6.6 million (USD 1 million) for midnight screenings and RMB 132 million-plus (USD 20-plus million) for its opening Saturday, figures that lag well behind the Chinese debuts of other Hollywood juggernauts such as Furious 7 (USD 66.8 million) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (USD 33.9 million). It bears noting that China’s currency has weakened significantly against the US dollar over the past six months, so The Force Awakens' final USD total will see a roughly 5 percent reduction as a result. Still, with the next three weeks cleared of box office competition, China Film Insider predicts that this first installment of the rebooted Star Wars trilogy will gross an admirable USD 150 million before Kung Fu Panda 3 opens on January 29.
Now should Disney really be concerned that The Force Awakens won’t be breaking box office records in China? Absolutely not.
First, the film has broken just about every single record in North America and will undoubtedly cross USD 2 billion in ticket sales worldwide, a feat so astounding only two other films in history – Titanic (USD 2.18 billion) and Avatar (USD 2.78 billion) – have managed to accomplish. Though all eyes will be focused on China this weekend, Disney clearly doesn’t need a phenomenal run there to prove that its USD 4 billion acquisition of the Star Wars franchise was a smart investment.
Second, Disney has done a great job laying the foundation for future Star Wars installments, spinoffs, and merchandising in China, by using The Force Awakens to introducing the brand to a new generation of moviegoers, and they can expect to see the dividends pay off in the coming years as the Star Wars culture establishes a foothold in the nation’s psyche, with Chinese actors taking on roles in the franchise’s coming spinoff, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Disney doesn’t have to look very far to find a comparable precedent: While it took several years for the studio’s Marvel universe to get off the ground in China, that is now by far the highest-grossing franchise there.