Chinese New Year box office started with a bang today in China, as Maoyan estimates 1.8B yuan ($248.3M) was generated for all films on day-one of the holiday period. This would mark a new milestone that well exceeds 2021’s previous first-day New Year record of 1.69M yuan.
For its part, Imax topped itself on Wednesday, seeing a CNY day-one record-breaking haul of $12M, besting its previous high of $11M in 2021. With 5% of the CNY box office so far, and on less than 1% of total screens, Imax captured its biggest percentage of the first-day results ever. Attendance for Imax was also at a new peak with 1.2M admissions nationwide.
The No. 1 title ushering in the Year of the Snake on Wednesday was Enlight’s Ne Zha 2, the follow up to 2019’s animated hit, with 486.6M yuan ($67.1M). In Imax, it grossed $2.5M.
Behind Ne Zha 2 at No. 2 for the day is Chen Sicheng’s fourquel Detective Chinatown 1900 from Maoyan, which features Chow Yun-Fat and John Cusack. It grossed an estimated 464.4M yuan ($64M) per Maoyan. The Imax portion is $1.5M. (Chen’s Detective Chinatown 3 was a record-breaker during 2021’s Lunar New Year period.)
At No. 3 for the day, but No. 1 for Imax, is Alibaba’s Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force. The sequel to Wuershan’s 2023 epic fantasy blockbuster did 382.8M yuan ($52.8M) per Maoyan, with a leading $4M for Imax on Wednesday.
Next up was China Film Group’s Legend of the Condor Heroes, director Tsui Hark’s period martial arts epic, adapted from the popular classic wuxia novel. It grossed 258.2M yuan ($35.6M) including $1.5M for Imax.
Following that is the latest in the long-running animated series, Boonie Bears: Future Reborn with 137.9M yuan ($19M).
Rounding out the top titles on Wednesday was Bona’s Operation Hadal. Directed by Dante Lam, this is the third installment of the Operation Red Sea franchise and is a Filmed for Imax title. Its overall gross on Wednesday is 95M yuan ($13.1M). Of that, Imax reps $2.8M or a massive 21.4%.
Heading into the start of the Spring Festival, as the period is also known, pre-sales were strong; local media reported they hit 600 million yuan ($83M) as of last Sunday, setting a new record for the fastest time to the milestone. On Tuesday, Xinhua reported total presales had exceeded 1B yuan ($137.9M).
Likely factoring into box office performance this year is a promotional scheme launched by the China Film Administration in December 2024 which runs through next month. The campaign offers subsidies of RMB 600M ($83M) to the moviegoing public. There are various measures in place across different areas to encourage people out to the cinema, state media also reported earlier in January.
China’s box office is coming off of a rough 2024, which saw it struggle owing to economic concerns and a lack of major local blockbuster drivers, among other issues. Full-year grosses were about $5.9B, a 25% decrease versus 2023.
For now, the holiday momentum is strong. CNY movies have already amassed another 544M+ yuan ($75M) as of 2AM Beijing time on Thursday. How the titles leg out individually remains to be seen given some are often frontloaded as audiences ultimately settle on one or two clear favorites. Social scores for the six new movies range from 9.2-9.7.
Predictions also tend to fluctuate across the first few days. Currently, Maoyan is projecting Ne Zha 2 at a final 4.9B yuan ($675.8M), Detective Chinatown 1900 at 3.6B yuan ($496.5M), Creation of the Gods II at 2B yuan ($275.8M), Boonie Bears at 1.3B yuan ($179.3M), Legend of the Condor Heroes at 819.6M yuan ($113M) and Operation Hadal at 409.3M yuan ($56.4M).
This year’s Spring Festival holiday has been extended by one day, running through February 5. We’ll have more updates along the way.