The ka-ching of cash registers were merrily ringing across China on Monday, the start of the 2016 Spring Festival, because Chinese flocked in droves to cinemas and, in the process, broke two movie records.
China Entertainment News reported that the first record broken was box office in a single day which hit $100.5 million (660 million yuan) on Feb. 8. The 78 percent year-on-year increase broke the record during Lunar New Year 2015.
The other record broken was made by Stephen Chow’s "The Mermaid" when it grossed $40.9 million on the same day. It is the biggest opening-day box office by a Chinese movie, although the real global record-holder is the U.S. movie “Furious 7” which had an enviable $63.2 million first-day box office in 2015.
“The Mermaid,” despite being dissed by critics for its weak plot, which was a push for the environment while masquerading as a comedy, turned out to be the surprise of the year. As a result, although the two other films that opened on Lunar New Year – “The Man From Macau 3” and “The Monkey King 2” -are almost tied for second place, their first-day box office was only 60 percent of “The Mermaid’s.”
The box office receipts indicate a change in Chinese movie goers’ viewing habits as they showed less preference for franchise movies over an “original one” that had an unoriginal theme.
It would be interesting to observe if American viewers would lap up director Stephen Chow’s monster hit or snub it like they did with "Monster Hunt" when the movie about a half-human, half-fish opens in the U.S. on Feb. 19, to be released by Sony Pictures.