Tuesday to become the top-grossing movie ever in China as the Paramount
Pictures film continued to dominate the mainland box office for a second
week.
The Michael Bay film had rolled up more than $215 million
in ticket sales in mainland China by the end of Monday, its 11th day in
theaters, figures from film industry consulting firm Artisan Gateway
showed, just about $9 million shy of the record set by “Avatar” in 2010.
The
fourth installment in the Transformers franchise was breaking other
records as well, reaching the 1-billion renminbi ($166-million)
milestone more quickly than any other film in history, Artisan said
(other films that have crossed that threshold took between 20 and 30
days). Released June 27, the movie may even reach the $300-million mark
before its run is out. At numerous theaters in Beijing, tickets were
priced at nearly $21.
Paramount went to great lengths to court the Chinese market, filming
in Hong Kong and parts of the mainland and casting Chinese performers
including Li Bingbing. The film’s premiere was held in Hong Kong and the
movie was presented as the final-night screening at the Shanghai
International Film Festival.
But it hasn’t been entirely smooth
sailing for “T4” in China. The movie included numerous product-placement
arrangements with Chinese brands, and not all of them are happy with
the way their deals turned out.
One hotel-mall complex, Pangu
Plaza, has already filed a lawsuit against two middlemen that it claims
failed to deliver on promises including getting Paramount to feature the
building in the film’s posters and other promotional materials. Pangu
even sought to persuade government authorities to block or delay the
film’s release but were unsuccessful.
Now another entity is making
noise that it is unsatisfied with a product-placement agreement it had
signed with M1905, the online arm of the state-run China Movie Channel.
Representatives of the Wulong Karst National Park in Sichuan province
held a news conference in Beijing on Monday to claim that they had paid
to have a sign identifying the park included in the film, but that it
was not.
Park officials said they intended to take legal action,
but there was no evidence as of Tuesday evening that any lawsuit had
been filed. M1905 is one of the film’s production and promotion
partners.
In all, for the seven days ending Sunday, “Transformers”
took in $115 million. In second place for the week was the local
production “The Breakup Guru,” which took in $41 million for a total of
$66 million despite going head-to-head with “Transformers.”
In
third place for the week was Disney's “Maleficent,” which took in $4.4
million for a total of $43 million on the mainland. The Chinese-South
Korean production “Bunshinsaba 3” was in fourth place with $3.7 million
and the late-coming Oscar nominee “American Hustle” — debuting more than
half a year after it opened stateside — managed to hustle up just under
$1.5 million.
No comments:
Post a Comment