Early reviews and only a decent opening for ‘Warcraft‘ in the United Stated would once mean that the cinematic franchise could be over before it started but Jackie Chan weighs in on why that isn’t the case. This master martial artist, movie star, and filmmaker has opened up on why he feels that the movie is only a sign of things to come. The reason being is that the movie made $286.1 million total gross during the opening weekend and $261.6 million of that was in overseas markets. Not only that but the bulk of that amount was directly made in China.
That is a number that had to have put a smile on Duncan Jones’ face as the lukewarm reception at home has been eagerly welcomed across the rest of the world. This massive change in where movies are going was first widely noticed with ‘Pacific Rim‘ where US audiences didn’t really buy into the giant fighting robots but because of sales in China there is now a sequel in the works.
During the Shanghai Film Festival, Chan specifically said:
“Warcraft made 600 million RMB ($91 million) in two days — this has scared the Americans. If we can make a film that earns 10 billion ($1.5 billion), then people from all over the world who study film will learn Chinese, instead of us learning English.”
Sounds like he’s got something to say to Hollywood and what talent might be thinking about in the future:
Kidding aside, with many analysts predicting that China will be the largest theatrical release market by the end of next year this actually seems to be pretty spot on.
There weren’t many Chinese film studios having that kind of success stateside but when the Dailan Wanda Group purchased Legendary Pictures that all really changed. While I don’t see any of the foreign studios taking down Disney or 20th Century Fox in the near future, I absolutely would love to see some heated competition that might break the formulaic films we’ve been getting from the big players.
Do you think that Chan is right that Hollywood should be looking over their shoulder at China as well as making more of a play to be successful in that market? Share your thoughts below!
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
