Mainland China’s box office slipped to a lowly $14.5 million over the past weekend, with no significant new films seeking to release during the country’s set-piece political events. The result was …
slipped to a lowly $14.5 million over the past weekend, with no significant new films seeking to release during the country’s set-piece political events. The result was an unchanged top five chart.
Third place belonged to “Ordinary Hero,” which like “Homecoming” had been released in time for the National Day festivities. It earned $1.8 million over the latest weekend for a four-week cumulative of $25.9 million. As this year’s data may be showing, the problem with the strategy of reliance on Chinese-patriotic tentpole movies is that these films tend to cluster their releases around peak holiday periods. That may have a cannibalization effect and appears to be leaving the periods in between increasingly fallow.