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Andy Lau starrer The Movie Emperor and romantic drama Viva La Vida have had their releases cut short in China amid stiff competition, while Yolo and Pegasus 2 are among four local breakout hits that contributed to a record-breaking $1.1bn box office over Chinese New Year.

Satirical comedy The Movie Emperor earned just $11.1m (RMB80m) after one week following its release on the first day of Chinese New Year (February 10), which also saw the opening of a string of hot local titles.

Chinese producer Huanxi Media issued a statement on social media to say it would be pulled from...

Lau Wai-Chi (Andy Lau) is a Hong Kong movie star with legions of devoted fans and a constant eye on his competition. His fame has drawn him inside an ever-tighter circle, where all he can do is keep his body perfect and worry what other star is snagging an award or a big role that should be his. Vulnerable and sensing the need for a new image, Lau is persuaded to take the starring role in a humble indie drama where the protagonist is a village pig farmer. Lau and the director – played by Ning Hao himself – agree this foray into miserabilist cinema will be just what foreign film festivals crave. [Source: 2023 Toronto International Film Festival]

Andy Lau continues his streak as a box-office drawcard with his third consecutive movie release since December 2023 – this time a Ning Hao industry comedy satire, “The Movie Emperor”, set for an exclusive Chinese New Year release in China on...

In America, doing what Andy Lau does in Hong Kong film industry satire “The Movie Emperor” would likely net him an Oscar nomination. Or at least an MTV Movie Award. Or maybe just the admiration of his peers, considering how few stars are willing to poke fun at their own image, much less entertain the question of what might happen if their fans were to turn on them tomorrow.

Reteaming with “Crazy Stone” director Ning Hao for an ultra-polished, good-sport parody of A-list vanity, Lau plays Dany Lau — not quite himself, but a megastar of roughly his own stature. The movie is loaded with inside jokes, but like French series “Call My Agent,” it should have no trouble translating around the globe. Between Lau’s international standing — bolstered by roles in everything from “Infernal Affairs” to “A Simple Life,” plus a Cantopop singing career — and the script’s deft way...

Chinese director Ning Hao has flown directly from Busan film festival in South Korea to China’s Pingyao International Film Festival (Pyiff) with his latest film, The Movie Emperor, starring Andy Lau.

After premiering in Toronto, the satirical comedy played as the closing film in Busan; one of two ‘Pingyao Surprise’ films at Pyiff, and will next screen at Tokyo International Film Festival. It will receive a wide theatrical release in China and international territories, including North America, on November 17.

In a thinly veiled satire of China’s film industry, Lau plays an old school movie star trying to regain relevance in the TikTok era by playing a pig farmer in a ‘serious’ Chinese drama aiming for film festival exposure. In order to get into character, he immerses himself in rural life, while still madly schmoozing to bring in investment, and insists on doing all his own stunts. Ning also...

That the Toronto world premiere of “The Movie Emperor” is sponsored by high-end home appliance manufacturer Dyson is deliciously and understatedly ironic. In the movie, innocuous-seeming domestic equipment — from the humble suitcase to floor sweeping robots — run quietly amok.

So, too, do other forms of supposedly convenient technology, from dashboard cameras to smartphone apps, which seem to conspire to crush the ego of the film’s protagonist, a major movie star trying to get into his role as an angry pig farmer.

That the analog pigs and their distracted human owners are just as much of a handful makes the film an inky, black-humored pastiche on modern high-tech society, our obsessions with self-image and the arrogance of the movie industry.

Chinese director Ning Hao, previously the purveyor of arty satire “Mongolian Ping Pong” and the more scattershot (and commercially successful) “Crazy Racer” and “Crazy Alien,” has always had a cruelly funny streak.

“No More Bets,” the smash hit Chinese crime thriller that has earned more than half a billion dollars in its home market, is hurriedly adding new territories to release.

It will release in the U.K. and Ireland from Friday through distributor Trinity Cine Asia. It will release in Hong Kong, on Sept. 21, through Haven Productions, Mandarin Entertainment and Intercontinental. It was given a limited release in the U.S. on Sept. 1.

Said to be based on actual events, the story involves a computer programmer and a model who are lured abroad by a job offer that turns out to be a scam. Instead, they are prevented from leaving and are obliged to work as online scammers, ripping off other unknowing victims.

The film was released in China in early August and spent three weeks at the top of the box office chart. It has amassed $547 million in 31 days of release,...

Universal’s ‘Oppenheimer’ nears $650m worldwide.

Worldwide box office Aug 11-13, 2023 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) 3-day (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. No More Bets (various) $87.9m $231.9m $87.9m $231.9m 1 2. Barbie (Warner Bros) $78.8m $1.18bn $45.1m $657.6m 76 3. Meg 2: The Trench (Warner Bros) $56.4m $256.9m $43.7m $202.8m 76 4. Oppenheimer (Universal) $50.7m $649m $31.9m $384.8m 80 5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Paramount) $26.2m $94.7m $10.4m $21.9m 48 6. Creation Of The Gods: Part 1 (various) $23.9m $275.6m $23.9m $275.6m 1 7. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (Paramount) $15.6m $522.5m $10.9m $362.9m 68 8. Gran Turismo: Based On A True Story (Sony) $10.7m $10.7m $10.7m...

Local crime thriller No More Bets dominated China’s box office during the Aug. 11-13 weekend, bringing in a boffo $101.1 million haul. The film enjoyed generous preview screenings ahead of its opening Wednesday and has earned an eye-popping $247.5 million already.

Meg 2: The Trench, the giant shark action sequel co-produced by Warner Bros. and China’s Cmc Pictures, slipped to third place in its second weekend with $16.7 for the frame and $91 million overall. Chinese fantasy blockbuster Creation of the Gods 1: Kingdom of Storms climbed back into second place, taking in $26.8 million for a hefty $283.4 million four-weekend total, according to data from Artisan Gateway.

Paramount Pictures’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, meanwhile, bombed with a three-day start of just under $1 million — despite the presence of Chinese action icon Jackie Chan in the starring voice cast. The flop continues a trend of Hollywood titles struggling to break through at China’s box office.

“Meg 2: The Trench,” the second instalment in the Chinese-financed giant shark franchise, was the top film worldwide over the weekend. But in its China home market “Meg 2” was beaten by strong previews of “No More Bets.”

Nevertheless, the arrival of two popular films at the top of the chart meant that China enjoyed its third highest box office weekend of the year, with a $185 million haul. That score is the strongest weekend of 2023 outside the Chinese New Year holiday season.

It also meant that China had a bigger weekend box office total than North America (estimated at $176 million by Comscore). That is not unprecedented, but it is rare for a non-holiday weekend.

“Meg 2” opened on Friday and earned $53.7 million (RMB381 million) over three days, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway.

“No More Bets” does not open officially until Wednesday, but it enjoyed wide previews from Saturday. Those previews...

Tencent has released the first trailer for its take on Chinese sci-fi writer Liu Cixin’s epic novel “The Three-Body Problem,” sparking comparisons between the local adaptation and the Netflix version also underway.

The book is the first in Liu’s Hugo Award-winning trilogy about humanity’s first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization.

Tencent’s adaptation is directed by Leon Yang Lei (“The Red”) and stars Zhang Luyi, Yu Hewei, Chen Jin (“All is Well”) and Wang Ziwen (“Ode to Joy”).

The web series began shooting in July 2020 and doesn’t yet have a specific release date, but is currently expected to hit sometime next year. Liu himself told the local press last month that Netflix is to start shooting the series this year, and that “China might release the series sooner” than the Hollywood version.

The new Tencent trailer opens with an exchange between two off-screen male voices.

“Have...

More than 80% of movie tickets in China are sold online or via mobile device, one of the world’s highest penetration rates. That gives the country’s ticketing agencies unusually accurate insight into audience behavior and film tracking.

After the early part of last year was wiped out by the coronavirus, how strong is the theatrical industry’s recovery?

Liu Zhenfei, analyst at leading ticketing agency Maoyan ran his slide rule over the upcoming Chinese New Year peak season and shared his analysis with Variety.

Variety: What is Maoyan’s overall forecast for the Chinese New Year week’s box office? Higher or lower than in 2019?

Liu: The data from Maoyan “Want to Watch” reflects audience expectations for the upcoming films during the week-long Chinese New Year holiday. And it is encouraging. “Want to Watch” numbers for “Detective Chinatown 3” exceeded 4 million. No other film has generated more than 2 million “Want to Watch” clicks before.

China on Thursday announced selection of Hong Kong director Peter Chan’s sports drama “Leap” as its contender for the Academy Awards’ best international feature film competition this year.

The film tells the fact-based story of the Chinese women’s national volleyball team and their travails over the course of decades, from their world championship win in 1981 to their triumph at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Gong Li stars in the biographical drama as the legendary coach Lang Ping, who at nearly 60 remains the team’s current head coach, opposite Huang Bo.

Notably, it was produced by Hong Kong’s Jojo Hui, who also produced the youth drama “Better Days,” which was announced as Hong Kong’s Oscar contender last Friday — giving her a rare double chance at the nominee short list.

“Leap” won the mainland’s government-backed Golden Rooster Award for best feature film last weekend weekend, signaling the ruling Communist...

Director Frant Gwo has announced that the sequel to his sci-fi hit “The Wandering Earth,” China’s third highest grossing film of all time, will release over the 2023 Lunar New Year holiday, consistently the country’s biggest movie-going week of each year.

“The Wandering Earth” became a surprise hit after its 2019 Lunar New Year debut, beating competitors including Ning Hao’s “Crazy Alien” and Han Han’s “Pegasus” to top that year’s holiday box office. Produced by Beijing Culture on a budget of around $50 million, it grossed $691 million in China, but less than $6 million in North America. It was later picked up by Netflix.

“After two years of pre-production and thinking about the script, we’ve decided to initiate our shooting plan for ‘The Wandering Earth 2,’ and at the same time have set our release date for New Year’s Day 2023,” set to fall on Jan. 22, Gwo told the...

China’s patriotic “My People, My Homeland” has grossed $325 million as of Monday evening local time, earning more money in less than two weeks than the $323 million that Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” has grossed globally in over a month, according to data from Maoyan and Box Office Mojo.

This weekend, the total China box office hit $68 million, once again far surpassing sales in North America, where cinemas earned less than $9.5 million. To date, the Chinese box office has grossed $1.9 billion so far in 2020. The tally puts China now neck-and-neck with the North American market’s year-to-date earnings of $2.08 billion, according to Comscore. (Both markets are down 76% year-on-year.)

Cinema-going is on the rise in China as the pandemic remains under control, with strong local films set to release in the remainder of the year. Meanwhile, U.S. theaters are heading for trouble as Hollywood studio tentpoles drop off the calendar and...

The China box office bounced back this weekend to its pre-pandemic levels, figures from its National Day holiday weekend show — proving that the right mix of competitive new local titles can entice viewers in, what this year is very much on track to be, the world’s largest movie market.

The news comes as other major markets flounder, with Regal Cinemas owner Cineworld Group announcing the temporary suspension of its U.S. and U.K. operations due to an insufficient pipeline of Hollywood studio tentpoles, causing its shares to plummet more than 40% on Monday.

China’s week-long vacation period to celebrate the Oct. 1 founding of the People’s Republic is one of its busiest moviegoing periods of the year. That is particularly true this year, after Covid-19 shut down cinemas and wiped out the prospects of the strong Lunar New Year release window. Three of the top five titles this...

Peter Chan’s hotly anticipated biographical sports drama “Leap” is set to hit China on Sept. 30, becoming the first of the Chinese New Year blockbusters canceled due to Covid-19 to set a theatrical outing.

Local animation “Jiang Ziya: Legend of Deification,” which was also originally scheduled to premiere over the lunar new year, will premiere the day after. They will both hit theaters over the China’s patriotic National Day holiday that begins Oct. 1, typically one of the busiest movie-going weeks of the year.

They will compete against the patriotic anthology film “My People, My Homeland,” a sequel to last National Day’s “My People, My Country,” and Chinese comedy “Coffee or Tea?,” as well as a local animated take on the classic “Mulan” legend.

The fact that major new local blockbusters are now willing to set release dates is a signal of renewed confidence in China’s box office,...

Universal Music Group’s China division on Thursday announced the launch of “Magic Muses,” its first local label in over a decade.

It will be focused solely on soundtracks and scores, seeking to work with local artists and composers to create tracks for Chinese film and TV projects.

Veteran film marketing executive Kelvin Hou will be the Beijing-based label’s CEO. Hou is the founder and former CEO of Chinese film website Mtime. Magic Muses will “bring together local talent from music and the film and TV, help them share ideas, exchange resources, and produce quality works,” he explained.

Prior to the new label, Umgc previously worked with the local blockbuster “The Eight Hundred” on its original soundtrack, which consists of 20 tracks created by composers Rupert Gregson-Williams (“Hacksaw Ridge”) and Andrew Kawczynski (“Dunkirk”) and producer Yu Fei. The closing track “Remember” is a take on the old Irish “Londonderry Air...

China’s Cmc Pictures will bring a line-up of five titles to the Cannes virtual market this year, including “Assassin in Red,” a major blockbuster set to hit next Chinese New Year.

The firm will be selling global rights outside of China and Southeast Asia to the fantasy drama directed by Lu Yang and executive produced by Ning Hao (“Crazy Alien”).

The film, whose Mandarin title translates to “Assassinate the Novelist,” tells the story of a man who, in order to save his missing daughter, is tasked with killing a writer whose writing creates a parallel world that begins to interact with the real one.

The title reunites “Brotherhood of Blades II” stars Yang Mi (“Tiny Times”) and Lei Jiayin (“The Longest Day in Chang’an”), alongside Golden Horse Award winner Dong Zijiang (of Jia Zhangke’s “Mountains May Depart” and “Ash is Purest White”).

Cmc also brings two of its...

Chinese moviegoers can expect to see Dante Lam’s “The Rescue,” Jackie Chan film “Vanguard” and two titles involving helmer Zhang Yimou this year, says a top Chinese distribution executive. He also confirmed National Day releases for two propaganda films — the first concrete information on upcoming theatrical debuts for new titles in months.

China’s cinemas shuttered in late January to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. A bevy of blockbusters expecting to see record box office returns over the Lunar New Year holiday were pulled at the eleventh hour and have not been given new release dates.

But new information from Fu Ruoqing, chairman of major state-owned distributor Huaxia, says audiences will be able to catch the delayed Chinese New Year films “The Rescue,” Dante’s epic actioner about the Chinese coast guard, and Stanley Tong’s “Vanguard” in the second half of 2020, as well as Zhang’s new spy thriller “Impasse.

The cancellation of Chinese New Year releases, and the fact that China has quarantined more than 50 million people, is turning out to be a huge boon for the nation’s streaming services.

Xu Zheng’s action comedy Lost In Russia, which has been streaming online in China since its theatrical release was abruptly cancelled in the coronavirus outbreak, racked up 600 million views in three days according to Chinese tech industry website Techweb.

The film was one of seven that were pulled from theatres on the eve of Chinese New Year, by far mainland China’s biggest annual holiday, as part...

The cancellation of Chinese New Year releases, and the fact that China has quarantined more than 50 million people, is turning out to be a huge boon for the nation’s streaming services.

Xu Zheng’s action comedy Lost In Russia, which has been streaming online in China since its theatrical release was abruptly cancelled in the coronavirus outbreak, racked up 600 million views in three days according to Chinese tech industry website Techweb.

The film was one of seven that were pulled from theatres on the eve of Chinese New Year, by far mainland China’s biggest annual holiday, as part...

The cancellation of Chinese New Year releases, and the fact that China has quarantined more than 50 million people, is turning out to be a huge boon for the nation’s streaming services.

Xu Zheng’s action comedy Lost In Russia, which has been streaming online in China since its theatrical release was abruptly cancelled in the coronavirus outbreak, racked up 600 million views in three days according to Chinese tech industry website Techweb.

The film was one of seven that were pulled from theatres on the eve of Chinese New Year, by far mainland China’s biggest annual holiday, as part...

As the coronavirus continues its rapid spread, China continues to struggle with consequences of the disease on myriad levels. The updated count of confirmed cases has crossed 6,000 on the mainland, with 132 people dead.

Separately to the tragic human toll of the virus, the economic impact could exceed $40B on a global level. Today, British Airways said it was cancelling all flights to and from China, following others who have curtailed or kiboshed travel. Hundreds of Britons being flown back from Wuhan tomorrow will be placed in quarantine for two weeks as a precaution, other countries are also repatriating citizens under similar measures.

Within the film industry, most recently, the giant Hengdian World Studios is understood to have closed indefinitely after shuttering its tourist attractions over the weekend in order to “cooperate with the current epidemic prevention and control work.”

Among the high profile projects to have temporarily ceased shooting elsewhere...

Local films grossed a combined $32.5m (Hk$252.9m) for a 13.2% market share.

Hong Kong’s box office decreased by just 1.74% to $247.4m (Hk$1.92bn) in 2019, despite the impact of political protests that have rocked the city since the middle of last year.

According to data from Hong Kong Box Office, the total was achieved despite a decline in the total number of films released to 326 titles compared to 353 the previous year. Overall box office was up by around 6% in the first half of 2019, but started to dip when the protests became more regular in the second half of the year.

Just two Us studio films, Avengers: Endgame and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs And Shaw, made it into the year-end top ten.

China’s box office increased by 5.4% to $9.2bn (RMB64.3bn) in 2019, according to figures from the China Film Administration, mostly off the back of a small number of out-sized local releases.

Local films accounted for 64% of total box office with a combined haul of $5.9bn (RMB41.2bn), despite a slowdown in local production due to increased censorship and the fallout from the tax scandal in 2018. Hollywood and other imported titles saw their market share decline further as Chinese films...

Beijing-based Enlight Media, one of China’s most prominent production companies, said Monday it expects a steep decrease in net profits of up to 96% in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2018 — an indicator of the deep turmoil in the Chinese industry, which has been hit by regulatory changes and new tax burdens.

Whereas the company booked net profits of RMB2.1 billion ($305 million at today’s exchange rate) in the first half of 2018, Enlight projects net profits of just between RMB85 million ($12.4 million) and RMB105 million ($15.3 million) in the first six months of 2019 — a year-on-year decrease of 95% to 96%. The final figure will be revealed later in a future report following a formal audit.

The decline comes despite the box office success of two of Enlight’s titles, director Ning Hao’s Chinese New Year hit, “Crazy Alien,” which grossed $320 million, and Hayao Miyazaki’s nearly 20-year-old animated classic,...

The publicity-shy chief of Beijing Culture, which has backed such Chinese mega-hits as “Wolf Warrior II” and “The Wandering Earth,” openly urged film directors Monday to stick to material pleasing to the Chinese state, for the sake of their investors.

“If you’re shooting an art house or smaller budget films, it’s no problem — say what you want to say and shoot what you want to shoot,” Beijing Culture chairman Song Ge said at his company’s first-ever press conference, held at the Shanghai Intl. Film Festival. “But once you’re shooting with investors’ money, given the societal circumstances we have today, you should shoot films that reflect mainstream values.”

He defined those values as “things that the state allows you to shoot – things that the average people are used to seeing, that stabilize society.” Echoing the Communist Party line, he declared that “this is the place of commercial films.

China’s Huanxi Media has acquired a slate of recent film titles that played prominently on the international festival circuit and collected multiple prizes.

They include Julian Schnabel’s “At Eternity’s Gate”; Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s “Never Look Away”; Marcus H. Rosenmueller’s “The Keeper”; Ziad Doueiri’s “The Insult”; Andrzej Zulawski’s “Cosmo”; Frederic Tellier’s “Serial Killer 1” from 2017; Dom Lenoir’s 2018 title “Winter Ridge”; and Mina Shum’s “Meditation Park,” starring Sandra Oh.

Huanxi, which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, is best-known as a producer backed by some of China’s leading talent. Its principal shareholders include directors Ning Hao and Xu Zheng, whose films “Crazy Alien” and “Dying to Survive” it has released in the past year.

However, the company sees its future as a specialist subscription-only video streaming platform. The platform’s lineup is a mix of tiles produced by Huanxi’s own directors and producers,...

Veteran film executive Milt Barlow has left as CEO of Tangren Cultural Group, an Australia-based, multi-territory distributor of Chinese movies, amid allegations on both sides of breach of contract.

Barlow sold his Asia Releasing company to Tangren in mid-2018 and became its CEO at the end of the year, but said he has now issued a breach-of-contract notice and plans to follow up with legal action against the company, possibly including a petition to shut it down.

“It became obvious to me in January that the structure and funding of the company was not something that I felt comfortable with,” Barlow told Variety. “Multiple breaches of my contract with Tangren over the past three months with no offer of resolution unfortunately forced my hand to issue a breach-of-contract notification to Tangren at the end of April and to end my association with the company.”

Tangren has hit back, saying that...

Contemporary Chinese Cinema is a column devoted to exploring contemporary Chinese-language cinema primarily as it is revealed to us at North American multiplexes.When I reviewed this year’s crop of Lunar New Year releases a couple of months ago, there was one title that was conspicuously missing from the group of films that were released in North America for the holiday season: Stephen Chow’s The New King of Comedy. I don’t know why it didn’t get a release here. It could be because its production was too rapid for the international distribution system to absorb it. It might have something to do with the involvement of Herman Yau, an outspoken proponent of democracy in Hong Kong and thus an unwelcome presence on the Mainland. Or, it may have just been overlooked in the mad rush to book The Wandering Earth on as many screens as possible...

Sagging performance by local films and a modest Chinese New Year haul left the Chinese box office down 8% in the first quarter of this year.

Gross box office in the three months from January to March 2019 totaled RMB18.6 billion ($2.77 billion), according to data from specialty consultancy Artisan Gateway. That compares with revenue of RMB20.2 billion ($3.01 billion) in the same period of 2018.

The quarter is usually one of the busiest and most important of the year as it spans the Chinese New Year (aka Lunar New Year or Spring Festival) holidays, which can fall either in January, or February. And many distributors target their key, general entertainment films releases at the time in order to catch family audiences.

This year’s Spring Festival produced an unexpected winner in Chinese-made sci-fi film “The Wandering Earth,” which has gone on to accumulate $693 million, but other films including “Crazy Alien” underperformed, or flopped. In total,...

The series is expected to start production in the first half of 2019.

Continuing a trend at this year’s Filmart for high-profile episodic series, China’s Huanxi Media has teased a few details of Wong Kar Wai’s upcoming web series, which has the working title Paradise Guesthouse.

Expected to start production in the first half of 2019, the series will revolve around the female proprietor of a guesthouse in a coastal town in mainland China. The story will follow her interactions with different guests, who will be introduced across the 12 x 45 minute episodes of the series.

“We think the project...

China’s first mainstream science-fiction film, “The Wandering Earth,” has surpassed “Operation Red Sea” to become the country’s second-highest-grossing movie of all time, with $679 million at the local box office and counting. “Crazy Alien,” another title released during last month’s competitive Chinese New Year period, has raked in $327 million domestically. Two more sci-fi movies are in the pipeline for release later this year.

Together, the films are charting a course for a previously nonexistent genre in the Middle Kingdom and are inspiring immense pride in rapt Chinese viewers. Although the country is home to a world-renowned sci-fi writer (Hugo Award winner Liu Cixin) and a burgeoning fan base, such domestically made sci-fi movies have exploded onto the scene only now that local production budgets and technical know-how can realize them.

Whether these blockbusters can blast off beyond China remains in doubt, however. Insiders say their popularity is more...

China’s film production sector might be facing a financial and governmental squeeze at the moment, but not multi-talented Chinese star Xu Zheng. Xu is guaranteed a payday of some $17.5 million (RMB117 million) on his current project, “Lost in Russia,” which amounts to more than half the film’s gross production budget.

“Lost in Russia,” which recently began shooting, is backed by Huanxi Media, the Hong Kong-listed Chinese production and streaming company behind Ning Hao’s recent smash hit, “Crazy Alien.” That film, a comedy about a zookeeper and an extraterrestrial, has made $327 million at the domestic box office.

Xu starred in “Crazy Alien” and has a stellar list of acting credits, including last summer’s hit “Dying to Survive” and previous “Lost In” franchise films in Thailand and Hong Kong. Xu is set as writer, director, producer and lead actor of “Lost in Russia,” which is expected to be...

The Independent Filmmaker Project announced on Wednesday that it has tapped film producer Jeffrey Sharp as the institution’s new executive director.

Sharp, an award-winning producer for “You Can Count on Me,” will bring decades of experience to Ifp, including his other work producing films such as “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Evening and The Yellow Birds” and digitally publishing authors such as William Styron, Pat Conroy and Pearl Buck as co-founder and president of Open Road Integrated Media.

“We are delighted to have Jeff join Ifp as its leader. His credentials and background are a perfect fit with our organization,” Ifp co-chairs Anthony Bregman and Jim Janowitz said in a statement. “He has developed and produced prestigious independent films. He has extensive non-profit experience as a co-founder and Chair of the Hamptons International Film Festival Advisory Board. He has broad contacts across foundations, arts organizations, and government.”

“I am tremendously...

February was the biggest month ever in a single market.

Total ticket sales have reached $1.63bn (RMB11.09bn) in February in China, confirming it as the biggest month in a single market ever.

It is also the second time China has broken such a world record following February 2018.

However, three weeks after the prime Chinese New Year season, the Chinese box office has returned to off-peak levels, with a 36% drop week-on-week between February 25 and March 3.

Fox’s cyborg action film Alita: Battle Angel was the highest-grossing film in this seven-day period, grossing $46.2m to take it to $108.4m to date.

Contemporary Chinese Cinema is a column devoted to exploring contemporary Chinese-language cinema primarily as it is revealed to us at North American multiplexes.Missbehavior This Lunar New Year season, traditionally the highest-grossing period of the Chinese cinema calendar, is lacking many of the big names of years past, especially as regards the films that saw release in the Us. Where in recent years Stephen Chow, Soi Cheang, Jackie Chan, Tsui Hark and others have crafted massive box office hits both here and in China, this year Chow and Chan’s movies didn’t get North American releases, while Ning Hao’s Crazy Alien had its scheduled run severely truncated if not outright cancelled. Gobbling up screens instead was The Wandering Earth, an epic sci-fi disaster film that has been smashing box office records left and right, cruising past $300 million in grosses as I write this with no end in sight.

Wang Xiaoshuai, the Chinese film director whose “So Long, My Son” picked up two top prizes at this month’s Berlin Film Festival, has stuck a production deal with expanding media group Huanxi Media.

Huanxi, which is backed by leading Chinese talent Ning Hao and Xu Zheng, obtains priority investment rights to two films or Internet series directed or produced by Wang and his Dongchun Films over the next six years. That includes global distribution and online rights.

Wang, a veteran of 11 feature films, is considered a leading light of the so-called sixth generation of mainland Chinese directors. His filmography includes 2001 breakout “Beijing Bicycle,” 2008 drama “In Love We Trust” and Cannes jury prize winner “Shanghai Dreams.”

His latest film, “So Long, My Son,” tracks the intertwined destinies of two families over 30 years, and illuminates the personal and social impact of China’s economic miracle and the country’s authoritarian rule.

Lunar New Year holiday season helped to propel titles including The Wandering Earth and Alita: Battle Angel

February 2019 was the biggest month in history at the Chinese box office as ticket sales crossed $1.6bn (RMB10.75bn) propelled by Chinese New Year releases. This makes it the highest-grossing month in a single market anywhere in the world ever.

It is the second time the Chinese box office has broken such a world record following February 2018.

Chinese New Year holdover The Wandering Earth retained the weekly crown for the period February 18-24, adding $80.6m for $620.4m after 20 days.

Over the three-day weekend (February 22-24), however,...

Hollywood and Chinese sci-fi offerings went head-to-head at the Chinese box office this weekend. Newcomer “Alita: Battle Angel” smashed its way to the top with a $64 million debut — streaking past the Chinese titles that, though popular, have been in theaters since the Lunar New Year holiday at the start of the month.

Fox’s futuristic tale of an amnesiac cyborg who rediscovers her identity on the mean streets of Iron City nearly doubled the weekend tally of “The Wandering Earth,” the Chinese sci-fi blockbuster that has climbed the charts since its Feb. 5 debut to become the country’s second-highest grossing film of all time. The Chinese film took in $34.3 million this weekend towards a cumulative total of $641.2 million, according to figures from consulting firm Artisan Gateway.

“Alita” is the first foreign film to hit Chinese theaters after the heady new year period, during which authorities impose an unofficial blackout on...

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World swoops past $200m.

February 25 Update: A mighty debut in China for Alita: Battle Angel helped the cyborg action tale deliver a timely $93.6m weekend result to lead all films at the international box office amid concerns over the film’s lacklustre North American performance.

Meanwhile How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World swooped past the $200m international milestone, Chinese smash The Wandering Earth reached $684m worldwide, and Mexican comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding (Boda De Mi Mejor Amigo) has reached $4.1m after two sessions.

Fox International

Updated: Robert Rodriguez’s...

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World swoops past $200m.

A mighty debut in China for Alita: Battle Angel helped the cyborg action tale deliver a timely $92.4m weekend result to lead all films at the international box office amid concerns over the film’s lacklustre North American performance.

Meanwhile How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World swooped past the $200m international milestone, Chinese smash The Wandering Earth reached $684m worldwide, and Mexican comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding (Boda De Mi Mejor Amigo) has reached $4.1m after two sessions.

Fox International

Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel...

“Alita: Battle Angel” beat expectations with its $27 million debut at the domestic box office, but Fox’s cyberpunk fantasy adventure has a long road to travel before it can claim victory. When it comes to achieving profitability, the CGI-spectacular may never arrive at that particular destination.

With a production budget hovering at $170 million (Fox says tax incentives lowered costs that were once north of $200 million) and tens of millions more in marketing and distribution costs, executives at rival studios estimate “Alita: Battle Angel” will need to gross roughly $500 million globally to get out of the red. Insiders at Fox say the break-even number is closer to $350 million. It’s too early to completely write off the film. But even though the movie has made $130 million worldwide so far, it’s unlikely that “Alita” will reach those box office heights.

“When you swing for the fences in the sci-fi genre,...

The winning films during China’s Lunar New Year holiday period remained on top of the local box office in their second normal weekend of release. Locally made sci-fi film “The Wandering Earth” pushed its total to $557 million.

“Wandering Earth” earned $88.8 million between Friday and Monday, according to data from Asian film industry consultancy Artisan Gateway. That was more than half of the $160 million of the entire market.

“Wandering Earth” surpassed “Avengers: Infinity War” on Saturday to become the highest-grossing Imax release ever in China. After adding $7.2 million from 603 Imax screens over the four-day weekend, the Imax cumulative for the film now stands at $43.7 million in China, and $44.7 million globally.

“Crazy Alien” was unchanged in second place. It earned $25.8 million over the weekend, and advanced its 13-day cumulative to $292 million.

Han Han’s “Pegasus” was similarly unchanged in third place. It earned $23.6 million, for a cumulative of $219 million.

“Boonie Bears:...

Frant Gwo’s big-budget sci-fi has dominated Chinese New Year period.

After the end of the prime Chinese New Year holidays, the Chinese box office began to cool down with a 45% week-on-week contraction in the week of Feb 11-17. But the good news is the ticket sales in February are set to top the figures in the same month last year, which held the world record for the biggest single month in a single market.

While the Chinese New Year titles still dominated the box office with the top three positions remained unchanged from the week before, the new releases...

Hollywood movies like “Alita: Battle Angel” and “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” are doing respectable business overseas, but they’re proving no match for foreign titles at the international box office.

The Chinese New Year is bringing in huge business in the Middle Kingdom. China’s sci-fi epic “The Wandering Earth” pulled in a massive $96.6 million from three territories, bringing its international tally to $606.8 million. Another movie from the Mainland, “Crazy Alien,” earned $28 million for an overseas total of $318 million, while fellow local title “Pegasus” brought in $25.7 million, taking its bounty to $238 million.

Fox’s “Alita: Battle Angel” led films on the Hollywood front, generated $56 million when it launched in 86 overseas markets this weekend. Directed by Robert Rodriguez and produced by James Cameron, the sci-fi adventure has now grossed $94 million internationally. The movie saw the best opening in Russia, where it earned $6.5 million. “Alita” also had sizable...

Aquaman tops $800m international box office; Ralph Breaks The Internet crosses milestones.

Update (Feb 19): The Wandering Earth held on to top spot at the international and global box office with ease thanks to an estimated $96.9m session, while Alita: Battle Angel leap-frogged DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World with $56.2m to ensure it finished top of the Hollywood pile.

Meanwhile Aquaman is days away from crossing $800m internationally, and Ralph Breaks The Internet breached the $300m international and $500m global box office barriers.

China Update

The progress of Frant Gwo’s Chinese sci-fi The Wandering Earth...

Aquaman on cusp of $800m international box office; Ralph Breaks The Internet crosses milestones.

The Wandering Earth held on to top spot at the international and global box office with ease thanks to an estimated $96.9m session, while Alita: Battle Angel leap-frogged DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World with $56.2m to ensure it finished top of the Hollywood pile.

Meanwhile Aquaman is days away from crossing $800m internationally, and Ralph Breaks The Internet breached the $300m international and $500m global box office barriers.

China Update

The progress of Frant Gwo’s Chinese sci-fi The Wandering Earth...

Box office figures for China’s competitive Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) period reached a record high this year, despite rampant piracy that likely incurred losses of an estimated RMB1 billion ($147.9 million), Chinese reports said. But the record gross came on the strength of higher movie ticket prices, not from more viewers hitting the theaters.

“The Spring Festival period is the prelude to the rest of the year, and so this [performance] indicates that the Chinese film market in 2019 will be full of uncertainty,” commentators on the WeChat account Entertainment Capital said.

The total box office intake for the Feb. 4-10 lunar new year period reached RMB5.83 billion ($860 million), an increase of 1.4% year-on-year, according to data from online ticketing platform Maoyan. But the number of actual cinema visits was down 10.3% year-on-year to 130 million.

Rising ticket prices were a key factor contributing to the decrease in cinema-going. Tickets for lunar new year...

The Chinese box office racked up a total of $858.7m ticket sales over Feb 4-10.

Led by The Wandering Earth, Crazy Alien and Pegasus, the Chinese box office racked up a total of $858.7m ticket sales over Feb 4-10, spanning from Chinese New Year’s Eve to the first six days of the lunar new year.

During this prime period, the Chinese box office delivered mixed results. Feb 5, the first day of the week-long holidays, scored a new global record for the biggest single day performance in a single market when it took in $211.9m, beating last year’s world record by 12.7%.

Nevertheless,...