The total gross of the films on Valentine’s Day in China has reached 379 million yuan with "xXx: The Return of Xander Cage" and "La La Land" leading the way. However, it is a large decline from last year.
Last year's Valentine's Day box office grossed 590 million yuan (US$85.89 million), thanks to the phenomenal "The Mermaid" by Stephen Chow, which sold 310 million yuan (US$45.13 million) worth of tickets alone. Last year the timing also coincided with the Spring Festival holidays.
This year, there's no phenomenal film and Valentine's day also falls on a weekday rather than on a weekend.
"xXx: The Return of Xander Cage," which opened in China on Feb. 10, took the crown of the day, raking in 161 million yuan (US$23.43 million) and reaching its second peak besides opening day. So far, the pop-corn action flick performed quite well in China with total gross surpassing 650 million yuan (US$94.6 million) in 5 days, greatly more than its North American box office income of just US$43.26 million since its Jan. 20 American release.
The most applauded award-winning musical romantic feature "La La Land" opened with a haul of 69.58 million yuan (US$10.12 million). Its total gross, combined with income from advanced screening, has reached 83.5 million yuan (US$12.15 million), a record-breaking achievement for a musical film in China. It will have a big chance to become the highest grossing musical in this market, surpassing Chinese music superstar Jay Chou's "The Rooftop"(120 million yuan). This is thanks to critics' and audiences' high praise and frequent news of awards being won, which has created much anticipation.
Some box office pundits still consider it to have underperformed as it has great quality and a perfect theme coinciding with Valentine's Day. However, Chinese audiences are not very big fans of musical films.
With revenue's from China, "La La Land" has danced its way past US$300 million worldwide. The film continues its award spree as it has just won 5 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards on Sunday and is considered as a strong contender for this year's Oscars.
Another two new Chinese films "Love Contractually" and "Revenge for Love" aiming at the St. Valentine Day rush performed averagely. Both took in more than 33 million yuan (US$4.8 million), ranked at No. 3 and 4 at box office chart for St. Valentine Day.
Another notable landmark is Jackie Chan's "Kung-Fu Yoga" which has surpassed "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" made by Tsui Hark and Stephen Chow to become the biggest grossing film in the 2017 Spring Festival season. The two films respectively grossed more than 1.6 billion yuan (US$233 million) thus far; the gap between them was just several million yuan on Tuesday. But the gap will increase as "Kung-Fu Yoga" keeps its healthy momentum while "Journey to the West" sequel loses pace.
"Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" broke the biggest single day and opening day box office records ever with a stunning take of 355 million yuan (US$51.69 million) in China when it premiered on Spring Festival Day with huge hype and expectation. But it suffered great drops day by day after its debut as its uneven quality attracted mixed reviews and several scenes and content is not that family-friendly compared with action comedy "Kung-Fu Yoga" starring Jackie Chan.
All these films will suffer great drops as everything returns to normal after the Valentine's Day economic boost - a day when Chinese lovers would spend whatever amount of money they have to celebrate romance.
Source: china.org by zhang rui
