China Box Office Thread | Deadpool & Wolverine- July 26

[keysersoze123]

It had 56% this past weekend. I assume that would mean 18-20%

It did 89m w 63% two weeks ago. Maybe it can still have a good holiday weekend w 20%

Do they shift showtimes during the weekend if one of the new releases bombs?

 

I think it only had 30% past weekend. So I assume just 10%. I assume it can still do 15m over the weekend with high saturation. Only Olive can confirm that.

[dezorz]

But why would that be "corrupting"??  Why shouldn't Hollywood get a bigger share of "their" movie??  Other countries are 40%-45% so why is China so low & they want it even lower- that one year holding up payment to get an even lower cut.  If they want to see Hollywood movies - and recent box office shows filmgoers do - they should pay a fair price like everyone else - I see no problem with HW wanting a fair cut on their product.

 

today´s chinese quota is 34 revenue shared foreing movies and 25 percent revenue share from these movies. it was set in 2012 for 5 following years.  before it was 20 foreing revenue shared movies and 13 percent share.  it is more than likely in 2017 (5 years from 2012) these numbers will rise.  as i said earlier last week, do not forget,  HW distributors do not need to spend most of their P&A expensise in China contrary to other foreing countries which in turn might be as much as half of what they get from cinemas.

 

don not forget, China is not free market capitalism yet. if it was, there would be no quoatas at all. in open market , if there is a demend for a product someone will provide it for the hioghest price consumers want to spend and lowest price chinese distributor can do the distribution which would abe about the same as any other country.

[druv10]

Olive, when will the presales be available for TA2 in China?

Edited April 27, 2015 by druv10

[keysersoze123]

Olive, when will the presales be available for TA2 in China?

 

I think its available. Currently it has sold whooping 15 tickets.

 

http://www.gewara.com/movie/207295462

[keysersoze123]

On a serious note F7 was 8192 on April 4th evening when Olive provided the update. So Avengers has had an early start. It would be interesting to track as its exactly releasing a month later.

[Olive]

More and more platforms are providing discount tickets now, so its meaningless to compare with each other.

[keysersoze123]

More and more platforms are providing discount tickets now, so its meaningless to compare with each other.

 

Does that mean AOU will sell more tickets than F7 before release.

[Olive]

It's possible, yesterday 50k tickets (19.9 yuan per) were released and were sold out immediately at one movie site.

[Olive]

Monday(4/27/2015) estimates

#/Title: Daily(yuan)~Total(yuan)~Total($)

1.The Left Ear: 31M~227M~$36.5M

2.Furious 7: 26M~2037M~$327.5M #1 all time grosser

3.Home: 3.4M~53.2M~$8.6M

4.Ever Since We Love: 2.8M~139M~$22.4M

5.Sabotage:2.5M~18.1M~$2.9M

(Current exchange rate $=6.22 Yuan).

Edited April 27, 2015 by Johnny Storm

[Pypa94]

122 now on Gewara xd

[Goffe]

guys, admissions numbers are usually reported? do we have an all time admissions chart? 

[Olive]

Well, many old movies had hundreds of millions admissions when western movies were forbidden in China. 

[dezorz]

Well, many old movies had hundreds of millions admissions when western movies were forbidden in China. 

economically fast growing countries like china, it is difficult to compare now and then. 10 years ago there was 20  percent of current screen count. even now, FF7 vs TF4, screen count today is about 8 percent bigger, so rule of thumb, if TF4 did max. possible attendance per screen, 350M schould be about equal to TF4´s 320M. (ok, i know Exchange rate of dollar is different and TF4 had some chinese successfulm movie in parallel run - at the end, it is still apples and pears, what counts is just the final sum.

[A Marvel Fanboy]

Some really interesting topics are going on here so I would also like to cut in a few words. Correct me of I am wrong.

First of all, the RULE is, HW accounting is one of the greatest mysteries in the world’s history so it is almost impossible for us outsiders to know exactly how many profits a certain movie ends up making or where those profits comes from.

That said, it is believed that HW studios generally pull back about 50% of their movies box office from North America theaters. This is probably very close to the truth. I have heard many people mentioning that HW could get as much as 40~45% (I am not sure if this is the real case) out of the total box office their movies produce in many overseas countries, except China, where the revenue-sharing rate currently is only 25%.

One thing I am certain about is that out of the same amount of 100 dollars box office, HW studios make less profits in any overseas country than in the domestic market (aka, North America). This is very understandable, as in the case of transnational corporations, every country will naturally try to keep money stay at home as much as possible. Obviously, there is a big difference between doing business domestically and doing business in a foreign nation. If you are an Italian, you would agree that, the less money flows back to Starbucks American headquarters from your country, the better, even though you Italians hardly drink Starbucks.

North America (US/Canada) is the biggest film market, all things considered. HW studios make most of their profits there. No doubt. However, people often forget about P&A and other costs. Easily, the marketing cost and distributing cost in North America is also the most expensive in the world. Maybe HW studios indeed get some 40~45% from most developed international markets but remember that 40~45% is before tariffs. Also, HW studios’ operating costs in developed markets trend to be substantially higher than in developing markets like China and India. To HW studios, 40% (just an example) in France is different to 40% in Italy, let alone to 40% in India, even if a certain studio movie makes the same amount of box office in these countries. Similarly, to HW studios, 25% in China doesn’t necessarily mean less pure profits than 40% in France, even if a certain studio movie makes the same amount of box office in the two territories.

To make it short, comparing the ratios HW studios get in different markets is totally meaningless without knowing/factoring in the tariffs, operating costs, exchange costs, etc. However, people constantly bring up that 40~45% vs 25% comparison, sounding like they are sure that HW studios earn significantly less in China than in any of the rest overseas countries, when their movies make the same amount of box office in the two palaces. Let’s not even look at the fact that box office gross of China for most HW big movies is soon completely overshadowing that of any other overseas market.

There was an article (http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/foreigndemyst.htm), courtesy of dezorz, in which Disney only claimed a net profit of $18m out of the $130m overseas box office Gone in 60 Seconds made back in 2000. Not sure if that article revealed the truth but the numbers it provided should not be too off. In other words, HW studios could be getting only 14% (18/130) from overseas box office in early 2000s. Perhaps the ratio has improved today but we don’t know exactly. And keep in mind, that 14% mentioned above still included studios’ operating costs on that individual film during its release (in different countries) so the real pure profits the films’ overseas box office had generated for Disney must be even less than $18m.

The film industry might be very small, compared to cars, food and real estates. But it is still a very costly one and the profit rate is not as great as some of us imagine. In fact, the majority of films lose money to varying degrees for producers across the world, Korean or HW, with only a small group of them making decent profits. The point is, don’t look at the millions of dollars HW big movies gross at the worldwide box office and say a few bucks in China doesn’t matter at all. Just the opposite, without the $25m~$100m from China, many of these movies could be in losing money status. At the very least, every penny counts.

In this post, I will not talk about what a $20 billion China film market means to HW, either on cash flow, financiering or content producing.

In 2017, when China and HW negotiate for another time, I believe the quota—currently 34 revenue sharing based foreign titles per year—will expand substantially but don’t expect the revenue sharing ratio—currently tax-free 25 percent of the box office—go significantly higher as there might not be enough room for it to go up.

There is a reason why the ratio was settled down at 25%. Firstly, I believe, that 25% is actually fairly close to what HW studios get in most other markets excluding taxes and some PA costs. I.E., 25% is already very much. Secondly, it is an equilibrium point that China and HW has reached under current situation. In other words, 25% is almost the upper limit the current Chinese distributing system can offer HW. (Apparently, China has the market while HW has the product so I would say both sides basically have the equal number of bargaining chips.)

FYI, generally speaking, the local producers only end up get 33% of a Chinese homegrown film’s total China box office. So there is a 8% gap between 33% and 25%. And where does that 8% go ? —CFGC, the official distributor of every revenue sharing based foreign title. Simply, HW studios, unwilling or not, pay CFGC 8% of the box office so the latter will distribute their movies in China. For comparison, for a local film, a Chinese local producer usually claims a distributing fee equaling 2~6% of the total box office. Bear in mind that, CFGC is the biggest and most powerful stated owned film company in China so it is inevitably that they will ask for some high distributing fees.

As such, unless its duty of distributing foreign (revenue-sharing) films is cancelled by SARFT, which is unlikely to happen any time soon IMO, CFGC is not going to easily give up the opportunity of making some great profits by handling HW big movies. That said, theoretically, even under CFGC’s hand of distribution, the ratio for HW studios could still rise, if SARFT somehow decides to cancel the 5% Special Fund or the 3.3% Theater Operating Tax or both. Side note: every release in China, Chinese homegrown or foreign or coproduction, must pay the 5% and 3.3%, the former mostly for China’s theater building while the latter for …tax.

Simply stated, the prime duty of SARFT, now called SAPPRFT, is to manipulate people’s minds. CMP is very unconfident. As long as they feel the needs to manipulate people’s minds to keep their ruling stable, SARFT will exist and so will the rigid censorship on film, TV, Press and Internet. And as long as the rigid censorship exists, Chinese films will remain poor quality with weak competitive power. As long as Chinese films have weak competitive power, there will be all kinds of restrictions on foreign films in China to keep the (box office) market balanced.

And sadly, comparing with many other industries, the film industry is still such a small one. For comparison, Volkswagen, the company alone generated a net profit of 5.2 billion EUR from China in 2014.

On the bright side, maybe when it grows big enough, the market itself could have more saying power. At the rate it’s going, by 2023, China could have a $20 billion box office market and a $30 billion-plus film market overall—believe me, China’s economy might be slowing down to 5~7% YOY but its box office hasn’t reach it’s a mid-point.

For most industries, I believe in free markets. Hopefully China will become more and more open.

Things can only happen step by step.

PS. Feels like I have forgotten to cover one or two more points here. Remind me.

Edited April 27, 2015 by firedeep

[Olive]

Eearly Thursday showtimes

You Are My Sunshin - 44%

Helios - 24.5%

FF7 -10%

The Left Ear - 8.8%

HOME - 3.8%

[Fake]

So this week could look something like:

26-25-20-15-25-25-20 = 155M week ($25M)

[Cedarpoint1111]

So is there a release schedule anywhere?

[Olive]

So is there a release schedule anywhere?

http://movie.douban.com/coming

http://english.entgroup.cn/coming/

[The Futurist]

So how many people have seen FF7 in China ?

Any estimate for an attendance number ?

Thanks a lot.

[Olive]

So how many people have seen FF7 in China ?

Any estimate for an attendance number ?

Thanks a lot.

52-53M