Taiwanese black comedy thriller The Pig, The Snake and The Pigeon brought some fresh momentum to China’s theatrical box office over the weekend, beating four local blockbusters that had dominated the market since the Lunar New Year holiday kicked off early last month. The hit crime movie, which was released in Taiwan last October, earned a healthy $16.2 million from its mainland China debut.
Zhang Yimou’s Article 20 came in a close second with $16 million, which lifted its cumulative score to a whopping $320.1 million, according to data from Artisan Gateway. The other Chinese holiday tentpoles also continued to do solid business. Han Han’s race car-driving sequel Pegasus 2 earned $14.4 million in its fourth frame for a total of $457.5 million, followed by children’s animation Boonie Bears: Time Twist at $8.7 million ($267.7 million in total) and Jia Ling heartwarming comedy Yolo with $8 million ($478.2 million).
The five Chinese films were miles ahead of Hollywood’s sole new release in the marketplace, Sony’s superhero misfire Madame Web. The Chinese audience appears to like the much-maligned Spider-Man spinoff even less than U.S. domestic viewers did. The movie, starring Dakota Johnson, opened with only $638,000, getting beaten by a promotional rerelease of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One, which brought in $674,000 from Friday to Sunday. Villeneuve’s commercially and critically acclaimed Dune: Part 2 opens in China on March 10. The sci-fi tentpole will be Hollywood’s best chance in months to restore some excitement around U.S. moviemaking in the massive China market. Dune: Part One (2021) earned $39.5 million of its $402 million worldwide total in China.
The Chinese economy is looking wobblier than it has in a generation, with an ongoing real estate crisis and slumping consumer confidence dragging on demand, but the film sector, so far, has remained resilient. As of Monday, China’s theatrical box office had generated just shy of $2 billion in ticket sales this year, with total revenue about one percent higher than at the same point in 2023.
