- Wonder Woman 1984 earned $ 1.5 million at the Chinese box office this weekend, down 92% from its debut in the region.
- The Hong Kong action film “Shock Wave 2” earned $ 64.5 million in China and the Chinese fantasy film “Dream of Eternity” earned $ 39 million over the weekend.
- “Wonder Woman 1984” scores a faint 7.8 on Chinese ticket app Maoyan and a 6.5 on Chinese social network Douban, indicating that audiences are not thrilled about the film.
- It outperformed the US $ 16.7 million over the weekend, the best opening of the pandemic.
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“Wonder Woman 1984” took a nose in the box office of China in the second weekend in theaters in the region.
The superhero sequel earned just $ 1.5 million over the weekend, according to Artisan Gateway, a Chinese film consulting firm. This is a 92% decrease from its debut weekend in China when it earned a disappointing $ 18 million.
It has so far earned $ 85 million worldwide.
The movie’s debut weekend was slow across the board, where the theater industry otherwise began to bounce back after being hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic (the Chinese box office even surpassed North America as the largest in the world this year). The Chinese film “The Rescue” also fell by $ 36 million under projections last weekend.
But this weekend was different, as the Hong Kong action film “Shock Wave 2” earned $ 64.5 million in China and the Chinese fantasy film “Dream of Eternity” earned $ 39 million. Yet ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ continued in the region.
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“Wonder Woman 1984” fared better this weekend in its debut in American theaters. It earned $ 16.7 million, the best opening since the pandemic began, but a sign that American movie theaters have not fully recovered for a long time. In 2017’s “Wonder Woman” earned $ 103 million in its opening weekend in the US. It eventually earned $ 822 million worldwide, of which $ 90.5 million came from China.
‘Wonder Woman 1984’ debuted simultaneously on WarnerMedia’s streaming service HBO Max in the USA this weekend (it is not yet available internationally). WarnerMedia said Sunday that nearly half of its retail subscribers (those who subscribe directly to Max rather than via a cable provider) watched the film on its first day on Friday, but did not provide any specific viewer numbers. Max had 12.6 million activities as of December 8th.
Industry experts said earlier that piracy could be a problem once the film is available to stream.
“A pristine copy of the high-definition film will be available in everyone’s queues within days,” Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at Box Office Pro, told Business Insider last week.
But a lack of enthusiasm for ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ may have contributed to its dramatic decline in the Chinese box office. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it scored a 7.8 on the Chinese ticket app Maoyan and a 6.5 on the Chinese social network Douban.
The film was generally less favored than its predecessor, “Wonder Woman”, among the audience and critics.
It has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 65% and a hearing point of 73% based on more than 1,700 user ratings (“Wonder Woman” has a 93% reviewer and 84% rating). The sequel received a B + on Cinemascore, which the audience investigates on the opening night of a movie (the first movie received an A).