Disney movie “Beauty and the Beast” broke box-office records in China when it premiered on March 17 by being the largest live-action debut for a Disney film in China. It earned $44.7 million in the Asian giant after three days of showing.
The amount contributed to the $350 million global total of the movie, starring Dan Stevens as the Beast and Emma Watson as Belle whom Chinese girls looked up to. According to LA Times, the bulk of the Chinese audience who watched “Beauty and the Beast” were young females since the film likely rekindled their childhood dreams of becoming a princess one day.
Reliving Fantasies
Besides the movie allowing the Chinese girls to relive their fantasies, the film also has popular stars since Emma Watson is known to a lot of Chinese fans, while Dan Stevens from “Downton Abbey” is known among local fans as big cousin or Dabiaoge. It also helped there is a Chinese version of “Beauty and the Beast” sang by pop stars Hebe Tien and Jing Boran.
Like the movie, the Chinese version of the theme song became an instant hit among young female Chinese when it was released on Tencent Video, a video streaming site in China, before the film premiered. Fans gave the movie a 7.5 out of 10 rating on Douban, a fan rating site in China, although the animated version shown in 1991 had a higher 8.5 score.
Still Number 1
“Beauty and the Beast” topped China’s weekend box office, followed by “A Dog’s Purpose” which earned another $21.5 million. In third place is “Logan” with a box office of $13.6 million.
In the U.S., “Power Rangers” would attempt to dislodge the Disney movie from the number 1 spot this weekend, but experts believe it would earn only about $30 million on its opening weekend in contrast with “Beauty and the Beast’s” $175 million, Variety reported.