Japanese animated film “Detective Conan: Bride of Halloween” skyrocketed to the top of the Chinese mainland box office and delivered its best numbers in six weeks. It also helped push the industry’s year-to-date backlog past $4 billion.
The film opened to $11.7 million (81.7 million CNY), according to data from consulting firm Artisan Gateway. This was nearly 50% market share and a wide margin ahead of the second-place title, “Tipping Point”, which had been the winner the previous weekend.
“The Tipping Point” grossed $3.9 million (27.6 million CNY) in its second frame. Since its launch on November 11, it has raised $17.7 million.
“Goodbye Beijing” was released on Friday and grossed $2.3 million in its three-day opening. The imported thriller “Fall” finished fourth, taking in $1.4 million in its opening three days.
Previous chart-topping title “Home Coming” slid to fifth, earning $1.3 million over the weekend. That brings the total amount to $223 million since its September 30 launch.
The box office rise, to $22.4 million overall, marks the highest total since the National Day holiday at the beginning of October. The result also brought the year-to-date total to $4.04 billion according to Artisan Gateway.
Expressed in US dollars, the current total is more than 35% behind the same point last year and more than 50% below the numbers for 2019, the last year before COVID. (Currency moves this year also dragged down Chinese data when expressed in dollars, but did not change the reversal trend.) In both 2020 and 2021, when China appeared to be responding to COVID more successfully than some other countries, the box office was the largest in the world. .
China’s theater industry is now operating under a combination of ongoing anti-COVID law enforcement measures (the national daily case count surpassed 25,000 in the past week) and economic and political uncertainty. This has translated into a shortage of domestic film releases and late approvals for imported titles.
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