Box Office: Chris Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’ Tops $140M In China

Obvious caveats and asterisks notwithstanding, Chris Nolan’s Matthew McConaughey/Anne Hathaway/Jessica Chastain sci-fi adventure is just the second “not a Marvel or DC superhero movie” Hollywood import to pass $140 million in China in almost two years.

With Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone set to (re)launch in China today (since it’s technically Friday in China), this could be Interstellar’s last day as the big story in terms of Hollywood reissues earning extra bucks via slowly-reopening Chinese theaters. Nonetheless, the Chris Nolan film has crossed (or will pass today) $140 million in accumulated Chinese box office, including the $121.99 million it earned in its initial 2014/2015 theatrical release. Back then, it was one of the bigger Hollywood movies ever released in China, bigger than any superhero movie up to that point. Ironically, if Interstellar were truly a “new” Hollywood release playing in China, it would be just the second such non-Marvel/DC superhero movie to pass $140 million in just under two years.

One of the big developments in terms of Chinese box office in 2018 and 2019 was the surge in popularity of Marvel and DC superhero movies. While Avengers: Age of Ultron earned $240 million in 2015 and Avengers: Infinity War would eventually earn $359 million in 2018, the non-Avengers superhero movies had a ceiling. Save for the kinda/sorta Avengers 2.5 that was Captain America: Civil War ($190 million in 2016), no “solo” superhero movie had earned more than the $122 million grossed by the likes of Iron Man 3 in 2013, X-Men: Apocalypse in 2016 and Ant-Man and the Wasp in mid-2018.

Later that year, Venom would earn $269 million (out of $854 million) in China alone while Aquaman would surf to $292 million on its way to $1.148 billion global. And 2019 would see Captain Marvel ($154 million) scale high above Wonder Woman ($95 million in 2017), Spider-Man: Far from Home ($200 million) soar above Spider-Man: Far from Home ($116 million in 2017) and Avengers: Endgame jump 71% above Infinity War, as its $614 million cume was enough to put its worldwide total just past Avatar’s $2.789 billion global gross.

While not every superhero movie scored in China (Shazam earned just $43 million and Dark Phoenix flopped with $59 million), the kinds of big tentpoles that used to thrive in China (Alita: Battle Angel, Detective Pikachu, Godzilla: King of the Monsters) under-performed compared to reasonable precedents from just two years ago. In 2017, xXx: Return of Xander Cage earned $164 million of its $385 million cume in China, while Resident Evil: The Final Chapter earned $159 million out of $312 million in China. In less extreme examples, Kong: Skull Island earned $168 million in both North America and China while Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales earned $172 million in both America and China toward its $795 million cume.

In early 2018, Ready Player One soared to $218 million (out of $582 million global) in China while Rampage earned $156 million (out of $428 million) there. The Meg earned $156 million in China and $145 million in America toward a $530 million cume, as Mission: Impossible – Fallout would earn $181 million (out of $692 million) in China. That summer, Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion earned a whopping $262 million (out of $1.308 billion) in China, up from the $228 million cume (out of $1.691 billion) for Jurassic World. That June 2018 release was, with one exception, the last Hollywood release that wasn’t a Marvel or DC superhero movie to earn even above $200 million.

Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham’s Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw was the exception, earning $201 million (a reasonable downturn from the $392 million earned from Furious 7 in 2015 and Fate of the Furious in 2017) out of $759 million worldwide last August. Otherwise, no Hollywood non-superhero movie earned more than the $133-$135 million earned by Alita Battle: Angel and Godzilla: King of the Monsters in the first half of 2019 since Bumblebee ($170 million) in late 2018.

You can chalk that up to the success of homegrown blockbusters like The Wandering Earth ($699 million) and Ne Zha ($723 million) negating interest in Hollywood tentpoles, China being just behind America in essentially choosing Marvel and DC flicks for all of their Hollywood blockbuster needs, or some other variable. But going into 2020, that was the big question, whether superhero movies would continue to dominate China and to what extent that would impact Hollywood biggies like Top Gun: Maverick, Mulan, Tenet and/or No Time to Die. To the extent that Sonic and Bad Boys for Life bombed (or are expected to bomb) in China, we don’t know how much of that is due to delay or disinterest.

Even as superhero movies ruled in North America over the last few years, there was, as of 2018, still plenty of interest in China (and around the world) in non-Marvel/DC tentpoles, an interest that often justified their existence. MGM and Warner Bros.’ Tomb Raider earned just $56 million domestic but $76 million in China for a good-enough $274 million (on a $94 million budget) global cume. China tends to just inflate the global earnings of already successful movies (or provide false hope to failed franchise offerings), but there have been enough cases of “China pushed us over the line” biggies (think War for the Planet of the Apes in 2017 and Bumblebee in 2018) for Hollywood to still consider China a valuable marketplace.

We still don’t know, thanks to the pandemic and how it shifted every single Hollywood release that was otherwise intended to play in China, if the late-2018/entirety of 2019 domination of comic book superhero movies was set to continue even in a year with (save for Wonder Woman 1984) comparatively less anticipated offerings. But the reduced capacity and related challenges mean that even Tenet may not breach the $140 million mark. Even Mulan, whenever it does open in China, is not guaranteed to hit the $140 million mark, and that was the case both before theaters shut down and now.  

So, yes, it is somewhat ironic that the $140 million which would have been a jaw-dropping final cume for Interstellar in 2014/2015 is now, several years later, again a seemingly unreachable milestone for Hollywood movies, aside from Marvel and DC biggies, playing for Chinese grosses. Come what may, Interstellar is the first new Hollywood non-DC/Marvel superhero movie to pass $140 million domestic since Paramount
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’s Transformers prequel/reboot in 2018 (ironically, the first time that a Transformers movie was truly “saved” by China). What would have been an incredibly impressive total for a Hollywood original in 2014 is every bit as impressive, maybe even more so, in 2020.