Four Chinese films dominated mainland China revenues and the global box office over the recent weekend. “YOLO,” a comedy-drama about weight loss and self-discovery, has been crowned the highest-grossing film worldwide for the second week in a row.
YOLO took in $86.5 million (RMB 614 million) between Friday and Sunday, giving it a 9-day cumulative total of $402 million (RMB 2.85 million), according to data from consulting firm Artisan Gateway.
The second film from Jia Ling, who previously directed the 2021 Lunar New Year blockbuster “Hi, Mom,” was released on Saturday, February 10 and has held the top spot since the second day of the Chinese New Year holiday, staying in the top comedy spot. “Pegasus 2” races by a whisker.
Over its most recent weekend, “Pegasus 2” grossed $80.6 million, bringing its total to $356 million.
“Article 20,” a legal comedy directed by Zhang Yimou, has improved significantly. It rose one place to number three on the Chinese and World Weekend charts and grossed $70.2 million over the weekend. That compares to its opening weekend of $47.6 million and gives it a 9-day total of $207 million.
Chinese anime “Boonie Bears: Time Twist” fell to fourth place on the Chinese weekend chart and fifth place globally. (On the worldwide chart provided by ComScore, “Bob Marley: One Love” ranked fourth, earning $56.7 million from 48 territories, including North America.) “Boonie Bears” added $52 million over the weekend, bringing His total profits over 9 days amounted to $209. million.
By a wide margin, director Ning Hao’s “The Movie Emperor,” starring Andy Lau, ranked fifth over the weekend in China. It took $1.3 million for a cumulative total of $11.9 million.
Calculations by the Chinese ticket agency, Maoyan, show that the Lunar New Year holiday period, or Chinese New Year holiday, generated record revenues of 8.02 billion Chinese yuan, or $1.11 billion, an increase of 18% from 2023. But the agency previously said that the comparison with years The former is not like that. Exactly, due to the timing of the holidays this year. In mainland China, holidays to welcome the Year of the Dragon officially ran from Saturday to Saturday (February 10 to 17), but some people may have taken the last Sunday off as well, making them an unusually long holiday.
In her latest note, Maoyan said 163 million tickets were sold during the holiday period. That was a 26% increase year-on-year, meaning ticket prices were lower. Maoyan says ticket prices during the holiday period fell by 6% to 49.1 yuan ($6.82) apiece, reflecting lower prices in major cities and the skew of attendance to third- and fourth-tier towns and cities, which this time accounted for 58%. Of box office business.
Artisan Gateway calculates that China’s box office revenue for the 2024 calendar year will be $1.62 billion. This is about 14% behind 2023 levels, but the gap could be narrowed if major titles have staying power or if the next batch of Hollywood titles find good traction.