We already spoke at the time that ‘Avatar 2’ was not performing as expected in China after a takeoff that caused fear (only momentarily, because we already know how Cameron’s invention is working) for its worldwide box office. In the end ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ has become a huge monster, with (so far) more than 2,000 million dollars collected at the box office worldwide, of which almost 230 come from China, which it is far from a failure. But those numbers could pale next to the new sci-fi monster coming from China itself: ‘The Wandering Earth 2’
But what is ‘The Wandering Earth’? Nothing short of one of the greatest box office hits in Chinese history. The first part was released in 2019, so it benefited from the buoyant box office situation in pre-pandemic times and is currently ranked fifth among the highest-grossing films of all time in the country. Internationally, it benefited from an undeniable boost: Netflix distributed it globally in May of that same year.
To all this we must add the name of Liu Cixin, the great name of Chinese science fiction and soon to come to the world thanks to the mainstream fame that Netflix will give him with the adaptation of his best-known work, ‘The problem of the three bodies’ . ‘The Wandering Earth’ part of one of his stories, and tells us how when our sun goes out, humanity makes a drastic decision to survive: take the Earth out of its orbit and allow it to navigate towards a new destination on a journey of 2500 years. Financial result of all these juicy ingredients (not counting streaming): 700 million dollars in theaters, starting from a budget of only 50.
‘The Wandering Earth 2’, apocalypse at the box office. Released on January 22, on the juicy and very traditional date of the Chinese New Year (an increasingly international celebration as well), it has raised 69.7 million dollars in a single day. During the rest of the weekend it almost doubled that number, and it has already surpassed $110 million. That is to say, slightly less than the 134 that ‘Avatar 2’ collected at its start in the United States, and well above what Cameron’s film reached in China: 57.1 million.
These are very encouraging figures for a film that continues the original adventure where that one left off, with the Earth propelled by huge engines that make it fly through space and with subsequent generations of Earthlings having to face new challenges. In the cast we find none other than the superstar Andy Lau, whom we remember from highly successful films in the West such as ‘Departed’, ‘Infernal Affairs’ or ‘The House of Flying Daggers’.
China: the giant returns. Lately, the Chinese box office has been talked about again in rosy terms. The Covid Zero policy of the last few months seemed to have poisoned the numbers, but the country is poised to bounce back (although India looks like Hollywood’s new pretty girl for Asian distribution). At the moment, and after the initial setback of ‘Avatar 2’, the doors are reopened to Disney and the next two Marvel movies will be seen in the country.
