The film "Logan" will be Hugh Jackman's final portrayal as "Wolverine" on film. (Photo : YouTube/20th Century Fox UK )
Even if China’s censor cut 14 minutes from “Logan,” it did not dampen Chinese moviegoers’ desire to watch higher-quality movies despite the violent scenes. As a result, the last appearance of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine led China’s box office over the weekend.
14-Minute Cuts
For the three days that “Logan” was shown beginning March 3, the film earned $48.6 million, higher than the earnings of the last two Wolverine films – “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “The Wolverine” – combined. The 14-minute cuts were made as a result of a new law that regulated film ratings which took effect on March 1, LA Times reported.
“The Lego Batman Movie,” which also premiered on March 3, earned only a fraction of “Logan’s” box-office results at $3.7 million, estimates from Ent Group said. Another foreign movie, “A Dog’s Purpose,” earned $17.4 million, landing in second place, according to The Hollywood Reporter. After that movie came “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” which added $17.7 million to its $138 million total earnings in China.
Lost in Translation
The weak performance of “The Lego Batman Movie” could be because it was lost permanently in translation because Legos are quite new to Chinese consumers. The movie’s heavy humor was also difficult for the local audience to appreciate since the “Justice League banter” is not familiar to most Chinese moviegoers.
“Assassin’s Creed” even beat the Batman movie with a weekend earning of $5.5 million as well as “xXx: Return of Xander Cage” which had a box office of $5 million. But in North America, “The Lego Batman Movie” earned almost $150 million. Besides the lost in translation problem of the film, the original “The Lego Movie” shown I 2014 was not released in China. Lego opened its biggest retail shop in Shanghai in 2016 to boost its footprint in China.
