Chinese box office: ‘The Flash’ opens slowly, ‘Elemental’ fails

Warner Bros The flash and Disney/Pixar Elementary both got off to a slow start in China over the weekend, just as they did in North America.

The two films garnered fairly positive social scores from Chinese viewers who saw them, but their actual ticket sales left much to be desired.

The flash opened in first place with $13.8 million, including previews, while Elemental debuted in third place with just $5.3 million, according to data from regional consultancy Artisan Gateway. Local ticket giant Maoyan is currently planning The flash to top out at about $27 million and Elementary ending up with around $18 million.

The flash it has social scores of 9.3 from Maoyan, 9.5 on Tao Piao Piao and 8 from Douban – healthy ratings for a US superhero title. Elementary scored 9.3/9.2/7.4 from the same services. However, neither title seems to have gotten enough hype to fill cinema seats with Chinese consumers.

Last week’s box office champ, Paramount’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts it slipped 69 percent to second place, adding $12.4 million for the chassis. The film made $61.7 million in two weeks in local theaters, a solid result in China’s current challenging release environment for Hollywood films, but significantly lower than previous installments in the Transformers franchise.

by Sony Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse it dropped to fourth in its third weekend of release, earning $3.7 million. Its current total is $41.3 million.

This summer, Chinese regulators are giving Hollywood titles tantalizing release dates and plenty of time for local marketing campaigns. But that hasn’t translated into impressive ticket sales, so far. The next one for China studios will be Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny on June 30, followed by Barbie on July 21st.