Zootopia (Photo : teaser-trailer.com)
Both the panda and the fennec fox are protected species, but it seems that insofar as Chinese moviegoers are concerned, the fox is now dearer to them than the panda. But that’s only for animated movies.
That’s because “Zootopia” just dislodged “Kung Fu Panda 3” as the top-grossing animated film in China. According to China Entertainment News, the box office of “Zootopia” in mainland to date has breached the $2 billion mark.
The Disney film about a mammalian metropolis exceeded by $19 million “Kung Fu Panda 3’s” box office earned after it was released in late January. On its first week of exhibition, “Zootopia” grossed $59.1 million which jumped to $172 million on its 17th day.
It seems that Chinese are bent on making the country the biggest film market ahead of estimates as box office records keep on being broken. At the start of the Lunar New Year, Stephen Chow’s “The Mermaid” broke China’s box office records by reaching 3 billion yuan. Seven weeks after the Spring Festival, cinemas enjoy good business, breaking the usual March performance of the film industry which is usually a slow moviegoing month in China.
Another foreign movie that did well is Leonardo DiCaprio’s “The Revenant” which earned $32 million for its first three days of exhibition. Leo’s Best Actor award from the Academy and his personally coming to China to promote the movie about a fur trapper helped boosted the film’s success.
In third place is “Gods of Egypt” which also earned $32 million, while in fourth place is “Ip Man 3” with $8 million box office, although its film distributor is under investigation for padding the figures.
“Zootopia,” which features the voices of Jason Bateman and Ginnifer Goodwin, is proof that animated movies continue to gain popularity in China. According to Xinhua News Agency’s estimate, the Asian giant’s cartoon market is expected to grow 100 percent by 2020 to $31 billion, reported Bloomberg.
