The $87 million-budgeted “Sonic” broke records in its February premiere stateside, attaining the highest opening figures for a video game movie adaptation to date with an estimated $57 million three-day debut. In China, it opened with just $1.27 million, according to leading Chinese data tracker Ent Group.
The depressed performance is due in large part to restrictions on operations currently in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. At the moment, venues can only sell 30% of their maximum capacity of seats for each show to allow for social distancing, and they must schedule half the number of screenings they normally would play in order to accommodate new disinfection measures.for titles that exceed two hours in length.
Meanwhile, the picture is even bleaker for lesser performing cinemas, such as a nine-theater, 1309-seat Wanda cineplex in the coastal city of Qingdao that ranked nearly 700th on Sunday — still far from the worst performer among the more than 7,000 that have resumed operations. On its tail was the Robert Downey Jr.-starring “Dolittle,” which Ent Group showed grossed $3.06 million in its second weekend in theaters, around $400,000 of which came from 442 Imax screens.
DavidPoland That'll teach them for naming a virus after themselves!
Just wait for the loss when Warner releases Tenet everywhere...all the other studios will postpone their movies right after
We are in the middle of a global pandemic, with reduced capacity and not everybody wanting to get sick for a movie... That's not going to change in the near future.
You’re not allowed to call it the Chinese Box Office that’s really offensive, just call it the box office.
Nobody’s going to the movies. Or people have a bad thing for the Chinese. Or both.