Currently sitting at a dismal 22% on Rotten Tomatoes and tracking to open at an anemic $24 million this weekend, Universal‘s video game gamble “Warcraft” might already look like a wash at the domestic box office. However, there is a silver lining and it’s one that many in Hollywood have been clinging to over the past few years: a given blockbuster’s international box office, specifically in China. Fast becoming one of the biggest movie markets in the world, if not one of the most important, China has been increasingly essential to any tentpole film’s bottom line, even for those that might not play well at home. One example would be last year’s otherwise battered “Terminator: Genisys,” which scored one of the highest openings for American film ever in China. While “Warcraft” is widely expected to flop In the U.S., it’s off to the races in the most populous nation in the world, courtesy of a record-breaking opening day haul of $46 million and with a estimated $90 million weekend when all is said and done. By comparison, “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice” did $95 million in China during its entire run.
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Over the past few years, it’s been no secret that Hollywood has increasingly viewed international box office receipts and a good reception in China as vital to their success. And Sanford Panitch, the new head of Columbia Pictures, makes it crystal clear what the landscape is right now for studios.
“The primary goal for Columbia Pictures, the flagship label of the company, is to make global pictures,” he told THR. “Given that Asia right now is almost 50 percent of the box office on big event titles, it would be foolish not to have Asia in mind when you are making a big visual-effects event movie or casting those kinds of movies. This is now the way the movie business has to evolve. We don’t just make movies for the U.S. and hope they work for the rest of the world.”
It’s a message being repeated over at Disney, with Bob Iger revealing that the company is already in the process of bringing its productions over to China.
“We have a lot of development activity right now to make Disney-branded films in China,” he told Bloomberg. “We are very far along on this process, including developing ideas, concepts for films and identifying talent to make those films.”
It’s not a big surprise that Disney is eager to stay in business in China. The studio has four of the highest grossing films this year in the country, and is on track to haul in $1 billion from the Chinese box office in 2016. Those are staggering numbers, which underscore why the studio’s burgeoning partnership with Shanghai Media Group Pictures is so important.
That said, not all the economics of doing business in China is ideal just yet. Generally speaking, movie studios earn a much smaller cut of ticket sales in that country than they do domestically—in fact, Universal won’t see a cent from China for “Warcraft”; the rights there belong to Legendary, which in turn was recently acquired by Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda. But even just in terms of ensuring global appeal for any kind of branded franchise, success in China is necessary. And with a growing middle class with spending power, it’s a huge, captive market.
So a “Warcraft” sequel could entirely powered by its success in China? It’s not an outrageous idea—just last spring, it was announced that China Movie Channel, Jiaflix, 1905.com and video game company Electronic Arts were developing a “Need For Speed” sequel because the original did strong numbers there. And as blockbusters continue to bank more and more abroad and look beyond North American borders to stay in the black, we’re going to see China’s role in Hollywood’s day to day business become more routine.