Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’ Boosts Slowly Recovering Chinese Box Office
China’s movie theaters are continuing a slow recovery but got a good boost on Sunday from the rerelease of Warner Bros.’ Christopher Nolan-directed “Interstellar,” which made $2.85 million to set a new single-day high for the country’s box office since cinemas started reopening after months of COVID-19 closures.
The $2.85 million total topples the $2.4 million opening day total earned in Korea by the “Train to Busan” sequel “Peninsula” three weeks ago. The total includes $660,000 from 461 IMAX screens, a format that will be significantly promoted for “Tenet.”
Overall weekend numbers are still a small fraction of what is usually seen from the lucrative box office market, settling at just $17.6 million for the entire weekend. Approximately 60% of the nation’s theaters were open this weekend with varying capacity limits and other social distancing measures in place. But the performance of the 2014 “Interstellar” is encouraging for Warner Bros. as it tries to roll out an overseas-first release strategy for Nolan’s latest film “Tenet” starting Aug. 26.
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China does not yet have a release date for “Tenet,” but it’s a hopeful sign that Chinese moviegoers are still interested in Nolan’s brand of complex sci-fi fare, considering they turned out to see “Interstellar” to the tune of $122 million upon its original release in 2014.
While “Interstellar” was released on Sunday, the highest weekend total belonged to Universal’s “Dolittle” with $3.3 million grossed including $400,000 from IMAX. On the flip side, Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” underwhelmed with just a $1.2 million opening weekend in China as family turnout is still reported to remain low in the country over pandemic concerns. With a $307 million global total and a sequel already set for release in April 2022, “Sonic” is still a hit for the struggling Paramount, though China had still been expected to push the film close to a $400 million global total this past winter before COVID-19 shut down theaters worldwide.
Provided that another outbreak does not force another shutdown, the China box office is expected to continue to steadily reopen theaters with a mix of rereleases and new titles from both domestic and overseas studios. Best Picture Oscar nominees “Ford v Ferrari” and “1917” will be released next weekend with IMAX support, while Sony’s “Bad Boys for Life” will be released Aug. 14. On Aug. 21, Huayi Bros. will release “The Eight Hundred,” a film about a band of Shanghai soldiers resisting an advance from Japanese forces; it is the first Chinese production to be entirely filmed with IMAX cameras. The film was initially set for release last year but was delayed after unknown objections from the Chinese government.
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