'Crazy Rich Asians' Flops In China, While 'Ralph Breaks The Internet' Holds No. 1 At The Domestic Box Office
Crazy Rich Asians finally made its premiere in the second biggest movie market in the world, but sadly, China wasn't crazy about the rom-com phenomenon. Though Crazy Rich Asians became a summer hit Stateside, raking in more than $173 million at the U.S. box office, it would be lucky to score more than $1 million in its opening weekend in China.
Meanwhile, Ralph Breaks the Internet is breaking the bank at No. 1 at the domestic box office, holding steady against The Grinch and Creed II.
Variety reports that the Crazy Rich Asians box office numbers in China disappointed, flopping with only a $410,000 haul on Friday and $400,000 on Saturday. The film barely registered with Chinese audiences, leading exhibitors to ditch the movie for other titles by Saturday, and for Crazy Rich Asians to wrap up the weekend with an eighth-place finish, behind Chinese-made titles like A Cool Fish and the inexplicably still-strong Venom.
The outlet points to the late release of Crazy Rich Asians, which comes more than four months after Crazy Rich Asians rode the wave of Asian August to become a bonafide cultural phenomenon in the States. But unfortunately, it doesn't look like that phenomenon will extend to China, whose audiences were "baffled by how they how what they see as a film full of Asian stereotypes could be celebrated as a coup for on-screen Asian representation," Variety writes.
"So Chinese people in the eyes of Europeans and Americans are just about clans, extravagant snobbery, a blind sense of superiority, and stubbornly clinging to outdated rules and ideas?" one Chinese user wrote Sunday on major review platform Douban, where the film already has a 6.2 out of 10 rating (many audience members have already seen the movie after it was widely pirated online).
I'm not too surprised that this has been the general reaction of Chinese audiences to Crazy Rich Asians — the movie comes from an emphatically Asian-American point of view, and what seems groundbreaking in the film feels par for the course in a Chinese film. Everything down to the soapy plot twist and the snobby, ultra-rich mom are — despite what the defensive Chinese reviewers say — pretty common tropes in Chinese movies and dramas. It's not a movie made for Chinese audiences, though that may change with the setting for the sequel, which takes Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) to the Chinese mainland.
Ralph Breaks the Internet Keeps the Crown
Meanwhile, over in the states, family fare is the order of the day in the post-Thanksgiving haze. Ralph Breaks the Internet continues to dominate the U.S. box office, maintaining the No. 1 spot with $25.75 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo.
The Wreck-It Ralph sequel dropped by a steep 54% after nearly setting a Thanksgiving record last weekend, but still held its No. 1 crown thanks to only one new film in wide release, the widely panned horror film The Possession of Hannah Grace, whose $6.5 million only earned it the No. 7 spot. Following Ralph Breaks the Internet were Universal's The Grinch at No. 2 $17.7 million, and Creed II, which dropped down a spot with $16.8 million this weekend. But nothing has come close to Ralph Breaks the Internet, which in 11 days of release has already cleared $207 million worldwide.