Box office: No ‘Barbenheimer’ in China as ‘Barbie’ opens in fifth place and ‘Oppenheimer’ awaits release date

Barbenheimer’s box office dominance doesn’t seem to extend to China.

by greta gerwig Barbie released in China on Friday to considerable fanfare, but its pink appeal is proving no match for a host of local Chinese blockbusters. The Warner Bros. fantasy comedy is on track to end its opening day in China in fifth place, having earned just $670,000 (RMB 4.8 million) as of 12pm local time.

Christopher Nolan oppenheimer, meanwhile, has been cleared by China’s censors for release, but regulators have yet to assign it a release date. Any China release for Universal Pictures’ landmark thriller is now likely to be at least a month away.

The smooth start to Barbie the trend of Hollywood movies earning much less in China than before continues. by Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One He badly lost his opening weekend in the country last weekend, debuting in third place behind a pair of holdover Chinese hits.

Hollywood movies have again flowed into Chinese theaters at a healthy rate, but total ticket sales for American movies in the first half of 2023 recorded just $592 million, a 69 percent drop from the $1.9 billion earned during the same period in 2019, before the pandemic. However, local Chinese movies are doing better than ever. In the first half of the year, ticket revenue for Chinese titles rose to $2.8 billion, up 27 percent from the equivalent period in 2019.

As Barbie faltered on Friday, Chinese stores were again doing great business. action comedy Wonder Familyfrom hit comedy producer FunAge Pictures, was riding high with $4.6 million in sales for the day at 12 p.m. The first installment of Chinese director Wuershan’s historical fantasy fengshen trilogycalled “China’s response to Lord of the Rings”, was on his way to second place with around $2.4 million. fengshen it opened Thursday with $7.5 million and strong word of mouth. Remnant animated hit chang an was in third Friday with $2.1 million (the film has earned $128 million to date), followed by the MMA drama Never say Never with close to $1 million for the first half of the day (his total is $239 million).

Updates to come.