Jump to content

A Marvel Fanboy

China Box Office Thread | Oppenheimer-August 30

By A Marvel Fanboy, in China At The Box Office

Recommended Posts







Gavin Feng Box Office Gold

Gavin Feng

Posted
Posted

A year ago, right after the teaser trailer was released and attracted huge attention, the local industry discussed and speculated that Mulan, a remake of Disney’s classical animation, would be a strong contender for the highest-grossing import film of 2020 in China. None of them could foresee the Chinese princess would be pushed back so many times due to COVID-19 and finally debut with sadly $23.2M here.

 

For a very long time, Disney’s princess titles haven’t done very well in Chinese film market. The main consumers here are composed of youth people who mostly consider family & animated movies as something only children could enjoy. Also musical elements are not widely accepted by Chinese audience. Beauty and the Beast made unexpected $90M lifetime here, but it is not pretty remarkable if you realize how it was doing in other territories especially UK & Japan. 

 

But it felt like that Mulan would be an exception. Firstly, it’s a story about a warrior who came from China. Secondly, it has more adult style and materials. Thirdly, the live-action version erase all musical elements. And, it has a cast that Chinese audience incl those who don’t always see Hollywood movies can feel very familiar and excited.

 

The tease of Mulan released by Disney last summer was reposted around 92K times on Weibo. Previously, only Avengers: Infinity War and its sequel Endgame could get that huge attention. According to Douban film site, Mulan was at the second place in the list of the most anticipated foreign films. Disney was successful in building and controlling high expectations. Local audience really want to see how the studio introduces a Chinese story and warrior to the rest of the world. Some people at that point did question if a western team could handle Chinese culture in right way, but the consensus was that a movie with that level of buzz would certainly make huge commercial success whether or not it’s going to cause controversy on historical accuracy. Industry analysts believed a great opening performance for Mulan is happening with the possibility of making $100M-plus on opening weekend.

 

But what if a large amount of people could see it before official channels are allowed to be accessed? Mulan finally landed on September 11th instead of 4th or later August in China. Enthusiasms from audience have already been weakened by COVID-19 and the announcement that Mulan would be released on Disney+ in some countries. However, the deadly blow for its local box office potential came from HD quality piracies. Both general audience and fandom lost their interest in seeing the movie they had been looking forward to for a long time in theaters.

Quality is a major problem, but giving up theatrical release plan make it become a bigger problem. Mulan is not a real remake like previous Disney’s live-action reimaginings. Liu Yifei is also not an actress known for its acting. But Disney could have fill this gap with some commercial advantages. For example, Liu has starred many hit TV series and is popular in second and third tier cities and towns. The vision is that studio can use her popularity to attract those audience who don’t really enjoy Hollywood movies. And they make this one be more like a war epic which local audience would prefer. But these commercial advantages have been buried since Disney announced the distribution strategy of Disney+. Disney fans think it’s not true to animation. Action-War movie fans think it is old-fashion and looks more boring in small screen. Little Hollywood-immune audience went cinema for the actress. 

 

Since China didn’t accept Mulan, Disney+ has become the last hope to its business. Whatever the result is, Disney probably would be more careful and sensitive on making a movie telling Chinese story in the future. The last time a major Disney film which included notable Chinese elements was Iron Man 3. It had some footage only Chinese audience could see. But both fans and general audience felt terrible about the meaningless extra scenes of Dr. Wu and embarrassed movie advertisements. A fun coincidence is, Shang-Chi is the next big Disney title which has gotten high attention and fierce controversies in China due to its comic especially the character The Mandarin. If Marvel Studios and Disney can’t handle it in a suitable way(I personally don’t think pleasing China is the right way and also don’t believe they know how to please us), the movie might face a more difficult situation here.

  • Like 6
  • Thanks 1
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
charlie Jatinder Global Phenomenon

charlie Jatinder

Posted
Posted

I think the reason Mulan failed in China isn't that it failed as "Chinese film" but was a bad film overall. I like Disney remakes, and think this one was better than animated Mulan but still a terrible film and 2nd worst Disney Live Action I have seen after Alice in Wonderland.

 

However, I also think if not COVID and it released in March as planned, this would have opened with $80-100mn and do perhaps $150-175mn in full run.

 

If it was a good film, it would have done wonders.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


john2000 Blockbuster

john2000

Posted
Posted
32 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

I think the reason Mulan failed in China isn't that it failed as "Chinese film" but was a bad film overall. I like Disney remakes, and think this one was better than animated Mulan but still a terrible film and 2nd worst Disney Live Action I have seen after Alice in Wonderland.

 

However, I also think if not COVID and it released in March as planned, this would have opened with $80-100mn and do perhaps $150-175mn in full run.

 

If it was a good film, it would have done wonders.

doubt it that it would do so much better without covid, piracy and bad wom hurt it more than covid

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Mau Indie Sensation

Mau

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Gavin Feng said:

A year ago, right after the teaser trailer was released and attracted huge attention, the local industry discussed and speculated that Mulan, a remake of Disney’s classical animation, would be a strong contender for the highest-grossing import film of 2020 in China. None of them could foresee the Chinese princess would be pushed back so many times due to COVID-19 and finally debut with sadly $23.2M here.

 

For a very long time, Disney’s princess titles haven’t done very well in Chinese film market. The main consumers here are composed of youth people who mostly consider family & animated movies as something only children could enjoy. Also musical elements are not widely accepted by Chinese audience. Beauty and the Beast made unexpected $90M lifetime here, but it is not pretty remarkable if you realize how it was doing in other territories especially UK & Japan. 

 

But it felt like that Mulan would be an exception. Firstly, it’s a story about a warrior who came from China. Secondly, it has more adult style and materials. Thirdly, the live-action version erase all musical elements. And, it has a cast that Chinese audience incl those who don’t always see Hollywood movies can feel very familiar and excited.

 

The tease of Mulan released by Disney last summer was reposted around 92K times on Weibo. Previously, only Avengers: Infinity War and its sequel Endgame could get that huge attention. According to Douban film site, Mulan was at the second place in the list of the most anticipated foreign films. Disney was successful in building and controlling high expectations. Local audience really want to see how the studio introduces a Chinese story and warrior to the rest of the world. Some people at that point did question if a western team could handle Chinese culture in right way, but the consensus was that a movie with that level of buzz would certainly make huge commercial success whether or not it’s going to cause controversy on historical accuracy. Industry analysts believed a great opening performance for Mulan is happening with the possibility of making $100M-plus on opening weekend.

 

But what if a large amount of people could see it before official channels are allowed to be accessed? Mulan finally landed on September 11th instead of 4th or later August in China. Enthusiasms from audience have already been weakened by COVID-19 and the announcement that Mulan would be released on Disney+ in some countries. However, the deadly blow for its local box office potential came from HD quality piracies. Both general audience and fandom lost their interest in seeing the movie they had been looking forward to for a long time in theaters.

Quality is a major problem, but giving up theatrical release plan make it become a bigger problem. Mulan is not a real remake like previous Disney’s live-action reimaginings. Liu Yifei is also not an actress known for its acting. But Disney could have fill this gap with some commercial advantages. For example, Liu has starred many hit TV series and is popular in second and third tier cities and towns. The vision is that studio can use her popularity to attract those audience who don’t really enjoy Hollywood movies. And they make this one be more like a war epic which local audience would prefer. But these commercial advantages have been buried since Disney announced the distribution strategy of Disney+. Disney fans think it’s not true to animation. Action-War movie fans think it is old-fashion and looks more boring in small screen. Little Hollywood-immune audience went cinema for the actress. 

 

Since China didn’t accept Mulan, Disney+ has become the last hope to its business. Whatever the result is, Disney probably would be more careful and sensitive on making a movie telling Chinese story in the future. The last time a major Disney film which included notable Chinese elements was Iron Man 3. It had some footage only Chinese audience could see. But both fans and general audience felt terrible about the meaningless extra scenes of Dr. Wu and embarrassed movie advertisements. A fun coincidence is, Shang-Chi is the next big Disney title which has gotten high attention and fierce controversies in China due to its comic especially the character The Mandarin. If Marvel Studios and Disney can’t handle it in a suitable way(I personally don’t think pleasing China is the right way and also don’t believe they know how to please us), the movie might face a more difficult situation here.

This is so interesting, do you think disney’s Raya has potential? (Although it is placed in south east asia) but it will not be musical and it is supposed to have a lot if action sequence. Can it do frozen 2 business?

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Gavin Feng Box Office Gold

Gavin Feng

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Mau said:

This is so interesting, do you think disney’s Raya has potential? (Although it is placed in south east asia) but it will not be musical and it is supposed to have a lot if action sequence. Can it do frozen 2 business?

it has a chance to be a success, but the reason would probably be something local audience can also feel from Zootopia(great imagination, cute characters & CP designs, a story about a girl travel to big city and make her dream come true) or Coco(strong emotions between family members). In other words, Chinese audience expect good storytelling and technology instead of Chinese stuff from Hollywood. Chinese movies still lack those powers, but they can give local audience more familiar experience. The best way to please China is actually doing their own job.

 

But I don't think executives in LA really realize that. Leave aside creative part, I saw so many times that they invited local stars to be some kind of marketing spokesman for attracting audience who don't really see Hollywood movies. The marketing of Infinity War here did this kind of things and was widely criticized by Marvel fans. During Endgame, they did nothing but pleasing core group, and then made histrionic box office performance for foreign movies here. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
















Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
Go to topic listing


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Guidelines. Feel free to read our Privacy Policy as well.

  I accept