Box Office: A Huge Opening For ‘The Eight Hundred’ Is Great News For ‘Tenet’

With another $22.5 million on Monday, $2.3 million more than its opening Friday gross, The Eight Hundred has now earned a whopping $139.18 million in China after four official days of theatrical release. Now that includes $30 million worth of Mon-Thurs previews, but even the $106 million Fri-Mon gross would be A) a triumph and B) still a record for any single territory for 2020. In terms of global debuts, Sonic the Hedgehog earned $116 million (including a $73 million Fri-Mon domestic launch) in its worldwide opening back in February.

As theaters worldwide start to reopen, the top-tier/best-case-scenario performance of this Chinese war epic is as optimistic a result as you could imagine. That’s encouraging news for Warner Bros.’ international theatrical release for Tenet as well as any of the other biggies still on the theatrical release calendar for this year. As with Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula and Deliver Us From Evil in South Korea, audiences are willing and eager to go back to movie theaters where they are allowed when there is a specific movie that they really want to see in theaters.

The zombie sequel has earned around $33 million worldwide while the actioner has earned around $25 million. The Eight Hundred, an $80 million, shot-entirely-on-IMAX war actioner about 400 Chinese soldiers defending a key/symbolic warehouse from Japanese invaders, could top $200 million by Thursday. Things could change due to Covid or competition from the likes of Love You Forever (opening today with $14.4 million in pre-sales) and Tenet (September 4), Guan Hu’s patriotic (but not nationalistic) melodrama could end up over $350 million.

The film had its theatrical release pulled last summer, allegedly because the heroes are Chinese Nationalists and not Mao Zedong’s Communist Party (which was celebrating their 70^th anniversary in 2019). As noted on Friday (after I was able to see the film), the film is closer in tone and philosophy to Kingdom of Heaven or The Last Jedi than Braveheart or The Green Berets. It’s very much about the whole “lions for lambs” or “war is old men talking and young men dying” nature of modern combat.

Here’s the rub: The Eight Hundred could end up earning about as much as it might have had it opened last summer or opened without coronavirus-related challenges and restrictions.  As today is the equivalent of Valentine’s Day in China, the film is expected to maybe earn another $30 million on day five. That’ll push it well past Sonic the Hedgehog’s $146 million domestic cume to give it the second-biggest single-territory gross of the year.

It is certain to join Bad Boys for Life ($204 million) as the only movie this year to top $200 million in a single territory. And it may become the third movie to pass $300 million worldwide, alongside Sonic the Hedgehog ($308 million) and Bad Boys 3 ($428 million). I can only hope that (offhand) Tenet, Mulan, Wonder Woman 1984, Black Widow, Soul, No Time to Die and (fingers-crossed) Dune can earn more worldwide than whatever The Eight Hundred earns in China.

But if China’s top-tier reception for The Eight Hundred is any indication, it means, within the scope of our current crisis, that the upcoming biggies (Wonder Woman 1984, Tenet, Black Widow, Soul, No Time to Die, etc.) may be able to earn about as much in global theatrical release as they would have absent the current variables. Is that overly optimistic? Maybe, as even South Korea is dealing with a possible resurgence in infections as we speak. China could be the exception to the rule in terms of audiences coming back.

But it does show, I would argue, that audiences WANT to come back to see the big movies for which they were excited to see before the pandemic shut everything down. They’ll still show up, if able, for event movies like Peninsula, The Eight-Hundred and (hopefully) Tenet. The Eight Hundred opens in 90 American theaters (including drive-ins) on Friday, and yes, I recommend it if you’re (safely) able and you’re curious.