This past weekend, the Lunar New Year was celebrated in China, with that came a plethora of fireworks, celebration, and apparently movie going. According to Box Office Mojo, and the numbers coming back in general, Detective Chinatown 3, sequel to a comedic adventure series, has dethroned Avengers: Endgame to have the largest opening weekend for one country of all-time. The Chinese film combines elements of a buddy-cop film with the fun action of a John Wick movie, which seems like a great time at the movies.
The series, which has now become an international success, started in 2015 with Detective Chinatown. The subsequent sequel received mix reviews in 2018, and now, nearly a year after the pandemic hit China the hardest, the next film in the series has made nearly $400 million in one 3-day weekend.
The exact number is $397 million, which is nearly $40 million more than Avengers: Endgame’s $357 million opening weekend. Typically when an opening weekend king is dethroned, there are fun exchanges between studios. For example, when Jurassic World was dethroned by the Force Awakens, the studios exchanged a handing of the torch image to celebrate Disney’s box office for that weekend.
Eventually Force Awakens being dethroned by Infinity War, which was then crushed by Endgame. However, Disney has not made comment, though it can be assumed that the “passing of the torch” posts are only for US Domestic releases.
However, this is huge for the film industry that has suffered due to the pandemic over the last year. And while China has its own reasons for being able to shove off the pandemic, it is a spark of hope that one day the United States will be able to watch movies in packed movie theaters again.
Though, it is hard to imagine a film surpassing a movie that was eleven years and twenty-two movies in the making. Detective Chinatown 3 did it with only six years over the span of two movies, which is quite remarkable.
The film was originally supposed to come out January 24,2020, but due to the pandemic in China, was pushed back a year. So for many Chinese citizens this film was probably built up to be the return to movie theaters, and seeing as it has now shattered Endgame’s opening weekend record, the marketing campaign was hugely successful.
Either way, movie going is alive and well in foreign countries, and here’s to hoping we can all get back into theaters safely soon.
Perhaps, Black Widow could shatter Endgame’s record as well. Endgame currently still holds the largest overall Box Office in history, surpassing 2009’s Avatar.
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