There are more box office records for Imax coming out of the just-concluded Chinese New Year holiday with the company notching its biggest ever haul for the annual period. Grossing $53M, Imax exceeded its previous record of $34M, set in 2023, by a huge 57%.
Imax also delivered its highest attendance ever for the Chinese New Year, with 5.5M admissions nationwide, and its best market share ever during the lucrative frame, repping 4.3% of the box office on only 1% of screens.
When the holiday kicked off last week, Imax scored a CNY day-one record, and its biggest percentage of the first-day results ever.
As we reported earlier today, the Spring Festival, as the holiday is also known, set an overall box office record with RMB 9.51B ($1.3B) from January 28-February 4. Animated sequel Ne Zha 2 led all play with Imax’s portion of the gross landing at $36M. The film also scored the biggest opening weekend in Imax history for an animated film with $22M, and is already the fourth highest grossing Imax local-language release of all time.
Next up for Imax was Alibaba’s fantasy Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force with $7.6M in the format, followed by China Film Group’s martial arts actioner Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants at $3.7M, Maoyan’s Detective Chinatown 1900 with $2.7M in Imax and Bona’s naval drama Operation Hadal also at $2.7M. The latter, along with Creation of the Gods, featured Imax-exclusive expanded aspect ratio.
Imax will continue to play the slate of Lunar New Year movies throughout its China network for another month.
Commented Imax CEO Rich Gelfond, “Chinese New Year unleashed one of the most impressive surges in moviegoing we’ve seen in recent years, anywhere in the world — leaving a slew of broken Imax records in its wake. This is a shot of adrenaline for moviegoing in China that comes at just the right time, with a tentpole heavy slate of local language and Hollywood films ahead for 2025.”
Said Daniel Manwaring, CEO of Imax China, “The message from audiences is clear: Imax is their first choice. Riding on a stronger-than-ever audience preference, Imax has transformed moviegoing into a cultural phenomenon and a social talking point. We deeply value their brand loyalty and are confident that we can carry this momentum throughout what is poised to be one of the strongest years for Chinese local language films.”
Creation of The Gods II and Detective Chinatown 1900 were also released in select Imax locations across 11 countries worldwide, bringing in more than $1.2M outside of China. Ne Zha 2 will be shown exclusively in Imax locations in Australia and New Zealand beginning tomorrow, February 6.