Box Office: ‘Deliver Us From Evil’ Beats ‘Interstellar’ Record As ‘1917’ Tops China

The top film of the weekend in China was Sam Mendes’ 1917, which earned $5.16 million in its debut Fri-Sun frame. That isn’t much, and honestly if the film were depending on Chinese grosses that would be unfortunate. When your $90 million, R-rated, star-free World War I thriller has now earned $381 million worldwide, anything from China is gravy. The only question is whether the Universal/DreamWorks/Amblin flick (which was distributed in China by Alibaba
BABA
) can leg out to push the movie over $400 million global. That’s a firm “probably not.” I’d have to assume that as more movies, new and old, open in China that the kind of legs we saw for Dolittle (the first major movie to play in China after reopening) will be in shorter supply.

Universal’s Dolittle opened with $5.08 million and has now earned $16 million at the end of day 17. Dolittle has now grossed $241 million worldwide, which would be a perfectly solid total had the Robert Downey Jr.-starring talking animal flick not cost $175 million to make. Dolittle, which legged out to $77 million domestic from a $30 million Fri-Mon launch in January, is Robert Downey Jr.’s biggest non-MCU and non-Sherlock Holmes grosser ever, which tells you something about star power in and out of a given franchise or marquee character. Since Sing earned $634 million worldwide in late 2016, I’m guessing Illumination and Universal’s Sing 2 (December 22, 2021) will supplant Dolittle for that extremely specific box office milestone. No word on if Universal’s Cats will make it to China.

Chris Nolan’s Interstellar continues to be a big story in China, as the much-liked sci-fi adventure earned $11.48 million in its first eight days of reissued theatrical play. As noted last week, the Matthew McConaughey/Anne Hathaway/Jessica Chastain/Michael Caine sci-fi flick earned $121.99 million in China in early 2015 back when that was bigger than any comic book superhero movie ever. Inception earned $65 million in China in 2010 while Dunkirk earned $51 million 2017. Comparatively, Batman Begins earned $1 million in China in 2005, The Dark Knight didn’t play theatrically (allegedly thanks to the whole “Chinese gangster helps the Gotham mob” subplot) and The Dark Knight Rises earned $53 million in 2012. Point being, Chinese moviegoers adore Chris Nolan in spite of his Batman movies, not because of them.

That’s a big deal with Tenet opening September 4. Interstellar has now earned $691 million worldwide, meaning it will likely become (with an obvious asterisk attached) the first wholly original live-action flick to top $700 million worldwide since Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity ($724 million) in 2013/2014. For reference, China’s biggest local blockbusters are a sequel (Wolf Warrior 2 with $854 million in 2017), an adaptation of a novel (The Wandering Earth with $699 million in 2019) and an animated adaptation of a folktale (Ne Zha with $724 million in 2019). Even in China, there’s a cap on wholly original flicks, although if America had original genre flicks like Monster Hunter or The Mermaid earning $350-$550 million domestic I’d imagine we wouldn’t be getting Dirty Dancing sequels or Grease prequels.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is slated to open next weekend alongside Sony’s Bad Boys For Life. Chris Columbus’ franchise-launcher earned $973 million worldwide in 2001/2002, making it the second-biggest movie of all time behind Titanic at the time. The film has already earned around $750,000 in pre-sales and is expected to easily top $15 million. Couple that with a current cume of $977 million (counting reissues) and the movie has a chance of passing $1 billion worldwide. That would make it the third movie to pass that milestone due to reissues, alongside The Phantom Menace in 2012 and Jurassic Park in 2013. The first seven Harry Potter movies earned between $792 million and $977 million between 2001 and 2010. They’d all be over $1 billion if adjusted for inflation.

STX Entertainment’s Greenland debuted in France this weekend with promising results. The Gerard Butler-starring disaster movie, about a single family unit struggling to stay together as a potentially extinction-sized comet hurtles toward Earth, is slated for America on September 25, and it earned $1.09 million from 485 locations for a new global cume of $1.25 million. Considering the current challenges (50% capacity, 25% fewer showtimes and no 10:00 pm screenings), that’s encouraging. The $34 million flick opened 8% ahead of Olympus Has Fallen and 46% ahead of Den of Thieves. It’ll open in 11 territories next weekend, including Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Switzerland (French-speaking), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Taiwan, Singapore, and Vietnam. Train to Busan Presents Peninsula opened in Canada this weekend with $128k in 48 theaters.

South Korea has now produced not one but two smash hits during its reopening period. Train to Busan Presents Peninsula had earned $25 million in South Korea alone by the end of last weekend (after a $2.4 million opening day). Deliver Us From Evil bested the $2.84 million opening day last Sunday of China’s Interstellar reissue to snag the biggest single-day gross anywhere for any movie since theaters began to reopen. The Hong Won-Chan-directed (and written) actioner, starring Hwang Jung-min as an assassin who gets pulled into one last (comparatively benevolent) job, earned $4.1 million on its fourth day of release for an $11.04 million cume. That’s probably a mix of anticipation and increased multiplex availability, but it’s encouraging when movies that would have been hits before the pandemic become hits now.