FREE GUY
20th Century and Disney’s Ryan Reynolds hit Free Guy cruised to an easy second-weekend win at China’s box office, earning $18.3 million for a 10-day total of $56.6 million.
The performance makes Free Guy already the third biggest new Hollywood release in China this year, behind Universal’s F9: The Fast Saga ($203.8 million) and Legendary/Warner Bros.’ Godzilla vs. Kong ($188.7 million).
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Skydance Media’s The Tomorrow War, starring Chris Pratt, also received a rare theatrical release in China over the weekend after being acquired by Amazon Prime Video for most of the rest of the world early in the summer. The sci-fi action film opened to $8 million and received a good-to-middling set of social scores, ranking 8.6/10 on ticketing service Maoyan and 6/10 on movie buff site Douban. Thanks to Amazon’s streaming release, the film has been widely available on Chinese piracy networks for weeks.
Local Chinese blockbuster Raging Fire slipped to third place, adding $6.2 million for a total of $175.5 million after six weekends. Disney/Pixar’s Luca landed in fourth with $1.3 million for a $12.8 million haul.
China has relaxed its summer blackout on imported Hollywood releases, but several major U.S. studio titles, such as Disney/Marvel’s Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, remain undated.
