Latest in China Box Office

UPDATED with closing prices. Exhibition stocks, paced by Imax, moved higher today as investors reacted to explosive weekend box office in China. The hope on Wall Street, unlike the mirage that briefly quadrupled AMC’s market value amid the GameStop surge, is that Stateside theaters may soon see pent-up demand finally…

Opening as the No. 1 movie in China this weekend, local 3D adventure fantasy Time Raiders scored a $64.6M debut. The pic, directed by Dragon Blade‘s Daniel Lee and starring Star Wars ambassador Lu Han, was the No. 3 title internationally, behind Suicide Squad and The Secret Life of Pets, when factoring in the latter’s…

Universal and Illumination’s Minions marched into the Middle Kingdom today with an estimated $20.1M (125M yuan) opening. That makes it the biggest opening day for an animated film ever in China; roughly 50% higher than the previous record held by Kung Fu Panda 2 (81M yuan). In more recent comps, it’s 40% higher than…

It took 58 days, but China’s local summer blockbuster, Monster Hunt, has now overtaken Universal’s Furious 7 to become the highest-grossing film ever at the Middle Kingdom box office. Furious 7‘s milestone was set with a run that lasted only 30 days. State news agency Xinhua, citing industry watchdog SAPPRFT, today…

Some estimates earlier this year put 2014’s projected box office in China at about 28B yuan, or around $4.49B. New takings cited by Wang Fenglin, VP of the Chinese Film Producer’s Association, are eyed at 30B yuan or $4.9B. That’s hardly anything to sneeze at, but would fall short of some other government projections…

With China‘s National Day holiday week still in swing, the box office got an extra boost this frame thanks to the timely release of Breakup Buddies, a sort of follow-up to 2012’s smash hit Lost In Thailand. Playing on half the screens in the massive market, the film grossed just under $38M in China this weekend…

Back in February, Chinese authorities made good on a promise to crack down on exhibitors who manipulate box office figures, banning nine movie theaters from screening new films. A further seven are now facing the same punishment. Those numbers may be a drop in the bucket in a country of over 18,000 screens, but it’s a…

It was definitely a happy Chinese New Year for IMAX on Friday. The giant-screen exhibitor said local-language hit The Monkey King grossed $1.8M on January 31, breaking China‘s opening-day IMAX record of $1.5M set by Iron Man 3 last year. The 3D martial-arts pic from Filmko Pictures and China Film Group took in $20M thr…

Listen to (and share) episode 17 of Deadline's audio podcast Global Showbiz Watch, With Nancy Tartaglione. Deadline’s international editor talks with host David Bloom about whether China's <a title="China Box Office Hits $3B+: Hollywood Improves While Local Films Dominate; What Does End Of 2013 Hold In Store?"…

Girls Impact the World And Dubai Fests Team On Film Prize The Girls Impact the World Film Festival and the Dubai International Film Festival have partnered to offer a new prize, the DIFF Prize for Advancing Women and Girls. The prize will be awarded to an aspiring student filmmaker from the Middle East and North…

EXCLUSIVE: I’ve just learned that Fast & Furious 6 opened #1 in China on Friday and is on track for a $24 million first weekend which would be that country’s 2nd highest three-day 2013 debut behind Iron Man 3. It also scored Universal's highest ever opening in that…