China Doesn't Love 'The Last Jedi'
by EG
China hasn't unreservedly loved any Star Wars movie, but the country's moviegoers seem to like Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi less than other films in the franchise. The new Star Wars movie opened in China this week, and so far, it's running a distant second to a Chinese comedy sequel.
Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi is off to an inauspicious start in China, its final major box-office test.
The prior two Star Wars films underperformed in China, but the early results for The Last Jedi, which finally debuted locally on Friday, look even worse than expected.
The film earned $560,000 (3.65 million RMB) in midnight previews, well behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens' $2.5 million (16 million RMB) previews score — and way behind The Fate of the Furious' record $8.7 million preview total (60 million RMB) in 2017.
Worse still, Friday's early box-office results have The Last Jedi clearly losing to local comedy The Ex-File 3: The Return of the Exes. As of 4:30 pm, Beijing time, The Last Jedi had earned approximately $5 million (33 million RMB) compared to Ex-Files 3's $11.6 million (75 million RMB), according to data from mobile ticketing service Maoyan.
The results came despite The Last Jedi getting substantially more screens — approximately a 35.6 percent share of all Chinese screens compared to Ex-File's 32.3 percent (again, as of 4:30 pm Friday). And adding insult to injury: Ex-File opened in China a full week ago.
The Ex-File franchise was created by comedy writer-turned-director Tian Yusheng. The franchise tells a series of stories about ex-girlfriends who enact revenge upon badly behaving ex-boyfriends. Ironically, the Chinese films' echo the classic Star Wars movies in their titles: the second film is Ex-Files 2: The Backup Strikes Back (2015, $38.9 million) and the third, currently dominating Last Jedi, is titled The Ex-File 3: The Return of the Exes.
It's possible Last Jedi could mount a comeback by the end of Friday, but the chances are looking very slim.
The Last Jedi's current global gross to date is $1.11 billion (The Force Awakens earned $2.06 billion in total; Rogue One took $1.06).
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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