In China box office news, War for the Planet of the Apes opened with a smashing $20 million opening day (including online ticketing fees), including $1.3m in Thursday midnight previews. This is great news for the otherwise underperforming 20th Century Fox sequel, which earned some of the best reviews of the summer but still stalled out just over $140m domestic after a $54m debut weekend in North America.
Conversely, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (which earned $207 million domestic in the summer of 2014) earned $47m over its opening weekend for a $107m China total toward a boffo $710m worldwide cume. The big China grosses won’t be enough to make up the difference, but it’ll help save face and push the acclaimed Matt Reeves picture over the $400 million mark worldwide and give it a shot at $500m global.
If it pulls in a $60 million weekend, that will probably mean a final total between $120m and $130m. That by itself might be enough to push the $150m sequel over the $500m mark, as it has $389m worldwide as of today and will have around over/under $430m as of Sunday night. China should at the very least push War over the $481m (in 2D and back in 2011) worldwide cume of the $94m-budgeted Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
I’ve discussed before why War for the Planet of the Apes might not have done better in North America (too similar to the last film, a relentlessly bleak tone, a more crowded summer, etc.), but the film stands out as the defining counterpoint to the “Rotten Tomatoes can make or break a movie” narrative. And the film, as good as it was, is another example of how Hollywood cannot and should not expect China to make up the difference all by itself in terms of declining domestic grosses for big franchises.
Yes, Apes will be a hit in the end (it will triple its production budget, give or take how much of the ticket sales Fox actually gets from China), but a better domestic gross would have made a huge difference.
Meanwhile, in somewhat surprising news, Spider-Man: Homecoming dropped a brutal 85% on its second Friday in China, earning just $3.1 million (counting online ticketing fees). That's a bigger drop than Paramount/Viacom Inc.'s Transformers: The Last Knight's 82% plunge and may be a record for a major Hollywood release. That still brings its China total to $93.1m, or about on par with Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($94m in 2014), but the quick collapse is yet another sign that domestic grosses damn well matter for these big movies. Sony’s movie is a hit in North America ($329m), and it’s doing well around the world. So, while China gave the film a shot in the arm and got it over the $800m mark worldwide, it wasn’t a situation where Sony was desperately waiting on the China release to pull it out of the fire.
The picture has earned $847 million worldwide, and it’ll be over/under $855m by the end of the weekend. It may not get past Walt Disney's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($864m), but it’s still the MCU’s biggest “not a sequel” worldwide grosser outside of (if you count it as a non-sequel) The Avengers. The big drop in China is a surprise, but money is money and the film is still quite successful. Besides, apples and oranges notwithstanding, Spider-Man: Homecoming took a huge tumble in North America in its second weekend and then righted the ship for a nice and leggy (2.8x its $117m opening) domestic run. Either way, Spider-Man: Homecoming did what it needed to do, in terms of making big bucks and getting fans back on board. So, yeah, this franchise could be saved.
