(Variety) Patriotic and gritty war film “The Sacrifice” topped the mainland Chinese box office for the second week. It earned $28.6 million over the weekend, lifting its ten-day cumulative score to $106 million, according to data from Artisan Gateway.
Of that weekend score, some $1.6 million was earned from 670 Imax screens. The Imax box office total for the film now stands at $6M, or some 5.5% of its 10-day overall total.
Japanese animated feature, “Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution” was the weekend’s premier new release. It ranked second with a $9.60 million three-day opening performance.
Omnibus, propaganda film “My Country, My Hometown” slipped to third place with a $7.8 million score in its fifth weekend of release. Its cumulative total now stands at $402 million, making it one of the biggest films anywhere in the world this year.
Chinese romantic comedy, “Oversize Love” about an overweight woman who miraculously loses the pounds, placed fourth. It earned $3.0 million in its three-day opening. Eva Jin, director of “Sophie’s Revenge” and “One Night Surprise” is among the screenwriters.
“Jiang Ziya: The Legend of Deification” took fifth place with $1.7 million. Its cumulative, since an Oct. 1 debut, is $236 million.
Other data sources report the debut of “The Perilousa Internet Ring.” The film is a Chinese horror film about a college student who investigates a series of mysterious deaths. It was directed by Japan’s Tsuruta Norio (“Ringu 0”) from a novel by China’s Ma Boyong. It earned $930,000 in three days.
Artisan Gateway reports that over the year to date the China box office is valued at $2.20 billion. That is 74% down on the equivalent figure for 2019, a tumble that reflects the nearly six months of enforced cinema closure, due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Source: Variety by Patrick Frater