Rave reviews fuel Spielberg's new film in China

By Zhang Rui
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, April 2, 2018
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A file photo shows the Chinese poster for "Ready Player One" [Photo/China.org.cn]

Steven Spielberg's new virtual reality-themed sci-fi adventure film "Ready Player One" raked in nearly 400 million yuan over the past weekend in China, and is very likely to become the Hollywood power player's highest-grossing work in the country.

According to Chinese film database and ticketing site Moyan, the movie grossed 388 million yuan (US$61.85 million) at box offices in three days since being released in the country last Friday. It earned about 85 million yuan (US$13.55 million) on its opening day alone, but rave reviews prompted it to go higher. 

It has become another film that has fared better in China than in its domestic North American market, where it delivered an estimated US$53.2 million in four days after debuting last Thursday. It is also the largest-ever opening for a Warner Bros. film in the Chinese market. By Monday the film had grossed around US$181 million worldwide, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. 

"Ready Player One," based on Ernest Cline's 2011 sci-fi novel, tells a story set in the year 2045, when people escape their dystopian reality and indulge in a virtual reality game called OASIS. Five young players search for hidden keys to an "Easter egg" left by the late game designer to inherit fortune and full ownership of OASIS, racing against the evil boss of video game company Innovative Online Industries and his army of debt-indentured players.


The new Chinese issue of Esquire magazine features "Ready Player One" director Steven Spielberg on its cover. [Photo/China.org.cn]

On Douban.com, China's major film review aggregation website, the movie's rating stood at 9.1 out of 10 on Monday with more than 160,000 users submitting their own scores. The rating is unusually high, as most Hollywood blockbusters receive aggregate scores between 6 and 7 out of 10 from Douban reviewers. On ticketing and database apps Maoyan and Taopiaopiao, the film also received aggregate scores above 9 out of 10 on Monday from exit polls given to more than 450,000 moviegoers.

In the current Chinese market, extremely high reviews could help a film become a success – as was the case with the Indian film "Dangal," the Chinese movie "Operation Red Sea" and the American animated feature "Coco." The film must also connect with normal people or tap into the nostalgia of the Chinese public to become a phenomenon. "Ready Player One" has both features: the best reviews plus a variety of tributes to pop and geek culture from video games, arcade games, Japanese anime to rock music and classic films enjoyed enormously by Chinese who were born in the 1980s and 1990s.

"It is simply a chronicle of the global pop culture of a century, " as one Chinese film critic put it.

Box office analysts expect the 71-year-old director's "Ready Player One" to eventually gross about 1.5 billion yuan (US$239.13 million) in the Chinese market, a new high for a Spielberg film. His previous highest-grossing film in China was the 3-D rerelease of "Jurassic Park," which made 350 million yuan (US$55.89 million) in 2013, while his last film released in China was 2016's "The BFG," which only grossed 143 million yuan (US$22.79 million). 

China hadn't yet opened its market to foreign films when Spielberg made some of his best-known and highest-grossing movies such as "Jaws," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," "Jurassic Park" and the "Indiana Jones" series produced from the 1970s to the early 1990s.

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