China Box Office: Why China Dug ‘The Mummy’

Jonathan Papish | Jun 15, 2017 12:00 pm | 2 comments | 3437 reads

This post comes courtesy of our content partners at China Film Insider.

If somehow you’d forgotten about the runaway Chinese box office successes of North American duds xXx: The Return of Xander Cage and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, let the last two weeks at the box offices in the world’s top two film markets be a fresh reminder of how starkly different their moviegoing tastes can be.

Last weekend, Wonder Woman debuted to RMB 246 million* (USD 36.2 million) in China. The opening was undoubtedly a success given the unfamiliarity of the source material and DC’s second-fiddle status to Marvel in the territory, but it was still a far cry from the USD 100-plus million opening director Patty Jenkins and stars Gal Gadot and Chris Pine earned at home.

READ: DC Finally Notches Victory With ‘Wonder Woman’ Debut

Meanwhile this weekend, The Mummy, starring Chinese favorite Tom Cruise, unearthed much more loot in China (RMB 335 million/USD 49.3 million*) than it did in North America (USD 32.2 million). What looked to be an early death knell for Universal’s planned “Dark Universe” was given second life not only by China’s boffo opening weekend performance, but strong plays elsewhere overseas including South Korea (USD 17.8 million), Russia (USD 7.6 million), and Taiwan (USD 4.9 million). International markets accounted for 81 percent of The Mummy’s USD 174 million debut.

The commercial success of The Mummy in China can be attributed to several different factors. Though Tom Cruise alone doesn’t portend box office success – see last year’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – the action star is well-known among Chinese moviegoers. More importantly, however, The Mummy is a well-established franchise: The Mummy Returns was the fourth-highest grossing film in China all the way back in 2001. In addition, China has an insatiable appetite for anything related to tomb-raiding; Kung Fu Yoga, Mojin: The Lost Legend, and Time Raiders are all among the top 20 highest-grossing domestic releases of all-time.

Despite The Mummy‘s box office coup, moviegoers were less than enthralled with the film itself. Douban users rated the film just 4.8/10 or worst than 94 percent of all movies listed on the influential site, and Maoyan users – a wider cross-section of general Chinese audiences than Douban – gave The Mummy 7.0/10, the worst rating of any Hollywood wide-release in 2017.

Those paltry numbers spell disaster for The Mummy which will likely drop an epic 80 to 90 percent in second weekend ticket sales and fail to hit the standard 2x opening weekend multiplier that has become the norm for Hollywood blockbusters in the territory.

In second place, behind much stronger word of mouth, Wonder Woman fell just 65 percent off its opening weekend to gross RMB 85.2 million* (USD 12.5 million). China’s 10-day total is now RMB 448 million* (USD 65.9 million).

READ: India's Sleeper Hit 'Dangal' Wakes Up a Slumbering Chinese Film Market

Spots three and four on the weekend charts went to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales which scavenged RMB 47.6 million* (USD 7.0 million) for a 17-day total of RMB 1.033 billion (USD 152.0 million), and India’s Dangal, still able to pin down RMB 32 million* (USD 4.7 million) on its sixth weekend of release. The highest-grossing non-Hollywood import continues its phenomenal Middle Kingdom run, now with RMB 1.126 billion (USD 165.6 million) and gas still left in the tank.

Up next Friday for Hollywood, Alien: Covenant looks bound to disappoint audiences. All eyes instead are on Transformers: The Last Knight, opening Friday June 23, as it challenges Furious 8 for the title of highest-grossing imported film of all-time.

*All listed grosses are adjusted to remove online ticketing fees. For a primer on why CFI reports this way, see here.

Photo courtesy of China Film Insider

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charlesliu's picture charlesliu Submitted by Guest on Thu, 06/15/2017 - 13:23

I don't consider Tom Cruise's star power to be a reason for the success of The Mummy in China, especially when it's pointed out in the article that his films don't all do well in the Celestial Kingdom.

Instead, the Chinese success of the Mummy is all deliberately engineered with decisions that would have ensured its failure at the Western box office.

This film made a very smart decision to market itself as a horror film (see the photo above) even though it's an action film. Also, beecause the film doesn't follow the cardinal rule of "show, don't tell," they are able to shoehorn in lots of wooden exposition. Through the use of verbose voiceovers and subtitled text, Chinese audiences can keep up with a foreign film.

Sure, subtitles can kill a film, but there's no talking during the important action set pieces.

Kyle Mullin's picture Kyle Mullin Submitted by Guest on Thu, 06/15/2017 - 12:44

Ugh, I was hoping The Mummy would flop as hard here as it did in the States, so that Hollywood would stop churning out these horrendous sequel machines (I've never seen such a cynical, meritless attempt to set up a franchise). Hopefully it bites the dust with 90 percent dropoff, like the writer predicts. I can only imagine one worse movie: the next Transformers.

At least the new Planet of the Apes looks more promising.

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