Tag: cinema

Box Office Sees a Victory for Pixar

Pixar will certainly be happy with their latest box office results, as they see their biggest opening in almost a decade for one of their originals. To catch us up, we have Brandon Blake,  the entertainment lawyer Los Angeles with Blake & Wang P.A.

Brandon Blake- Entertainment lawyer
Brandon Blake

Welcome Record for Pixar

Hoppers was also the main success at the box office for the weekend, bringing in $46M, with a total haul of $88M globally over a nicely synergistic 88 markets. That was finally enough to topple their release of Coco in 2017, which has been the best-performing original title for them to date.

It will be welcome news to Pixar itself, which has slipped from the animation world’s darling to a much harder sell in recent years. Other than their franchise offerings, like Inside Out 2, we’ve seen a spate of lackluster theatrical releases from them of late.

Scream Beats Out the Bride

Blake & Wang Attorneys
In another surprising result, while The Bride! Didn’t see the theatrical success it was expected to on its debut weekend, bringing in only $7.3M domestically for a total of $13M, Scream 7 is finding a warmer on-screen welcome than you would think from critical feedback. Although there was a notable falloff for its second weekend, it still successfully brought in another $15.6M, bringing its cume globally to just short of $150M.

Hoppers may have been the only title in the top 3 to really make a splash this weekend, but it was certainly the best kind of splash to make. There are a few things that have contributed to its success so far, including a deal to run the film on IMAX screens for daytime viewing. Interestingly, there was a large percentage of teens, younger adults, and even older adults going to see the film as well, so it has successfully escaped being branded a family-only title. Perhaps the Pixar magic is, once again, on its way up.

China Sees a Massive Box Office Uptick

For Chinese cinemagoers, this was the year of the major blockbuster. With both a local and a Hollywood release performing remarkably, they’ve seen a big increase at the box office by pure numbers, but a struggling mid-tier segment does raise some questions about growth overall. We have a full roundup from expert entertainment attorney with Blake & Wang P.A., Brandon Blake.


Brandon Blake

Top-Heavy Success

First, the good news. Ne Zha 2, a domestic breakout like no other, closed with $2.1B in takings, enough to make it the fifth-highest earning movie of all time, as well as the year’s undisputed top film. To further pad out the numbers, Zootopia 2 not only earned itself a Chinese screening but gave a further $558.3M to the total box office. Overall, the Chinese box office saw ticket revenue 20% higher than last year, at roughly $7.41B in sales and 1.24B in admissions.

The Year of Animation

What unites them? They’re both blockbuster-level animations. And, looking further down the list, 57 animated features brought in $3.57B, almost half the year’s total. What’s even more notable is that most of these titles saw fan-favorite status and high repeat viewings, with Nobody, a local animation, bringing in $245M and the international release, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, accounting for $95.6M despite an early exit from theaters.

While local titles still accounted for roughly 80% of the Chinese market, and there was encouraging growth in the country’s still-maturing suburban and regional markets, it is notable that most of the list is top-heavy, with mid-tier films shrinking notably for another year, even among Hollywood releases in the market. However, the appetite for locally-made films is still high.

What this could mean for the market overall waits to be seen, but China’s return to the second-largest global film market, at 24% of the global box office, is still to be celebrated.