The Trend of Tentpole Films Opening Bigger in China than North America, But Will It Last?

As the China box-office continues to mature we will begin to see fewer Hollywood tentpoles opening much larger in China than they do in North America. A result that should also correlate with a slowdown of second weekend drops at the China box-office for tentpole films as well.

With only Ready Player One truly bucking this second weekend trend, as it will pass $200MMUSD this week in China. A rarity of Hollywood films today, as the Golden China that many have declared the China box-office to be, do not make as big of a splash as they did just a few years ago.

• Ready Player One had blessing of the ancestors in its second week (most likely due to Alibaba being a strategic partner of Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment) with the national Qingming Festival landing over the same period as Ready Player One's second weekend.

There is a definitive statistical reason for both; tentpole Hollywood films opening larger in China than North America, then followed by a huge second weekend drop.

As with this past weekend's release of Dwayne Johnson's 'Rampage' controlling 70% of all the screens across the Middle Kingdom, many of the other major Hollywood releases have done the same. Followed with a drop in screen count over the Monday to Sunday period; either to local competition or to poorer showing than expected. For a significant drop of their screen hold by the following Friday.

One such example was the January release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi which saw 95% of its screens dropped by cinema chains, not necessarily due to its poor box-office performance but to local competition, in its first Monday of release. Seeing one of the biggest box-office drops in history for such a film.

A history setting record that was shortly lived, as the second week overall drop for The Last Jedi was only 70%. A big, but in today's terms, more normalized drop for most Hollywood films in China. A drop that is on par with John Papish's "China Box-Office" Twitter feed stats of Black Panther having a 68% drop and Pacific Rim: Uprising also seeing a 70% drop.

• These percentage figures differ from my own as they are for the second week total run instead of just the weekend.

We shall see if Rampage plays more like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, due to Dwayne Johnson's popularity there, and have longer legs than most other Hollywood fare has this year. Films that have been considered box-office bombs or disappointments when in reality they are playing at more predictable outcomes than the wildly growing cinema market of pre-2016 China.

Rampage has a clearer run in China as Avengers: Infinity War does not open until May, a few weeks behind the rest of the world, so its drop will be interesting to see.

Ryan Carroll is an Asian Emerging Markets Consultant, who specializes in; China Film & Entertainment, Developing IP & Shared Universes, for cross-pollination & licensing across all platforms.

Ryan has direct Executive Consulting experience with partners in a range of entertainment & media fields in; India, Norway, China and the United Arab Eremites.

For IP, Ryan focuses on the emerging markets worldwide, and emerging female, minority, disabled, and overlooked cultural demographics.

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