After a soft start in China, Barbie began to make inroads in the world’s second-biggest movie market in its second frame, buoyed by great critics scores and strong word-of-mouth.
Barbie opened to $8 million in China last weekend, claiming fifth place amid tough competition from local hits Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms, Chang An and Never Say Never. The modest total seemed to suggest that Barbie would go the way of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and a slew of recent Hollywood tentpoles that opened weak in China and failed to show legs — feeding into the trend that Chinese consumers were turning away from Western fare at the mutliplex.
Unlike other recent Hollywood releases, Greta Gerwig’s scored excellent scores on China’s most respected movie apps when it opened, earning 9.4 on Maoyan, 9.3 on Tao Piao Piao and 8.6 on Douban. This, allied with strong word-of-mouth from audiences, has seen Chinese theaters increase the number of screens dedicated to the film, jumping from over 9,000 on release to around 36,000 screens according to Maoyan’s data.
The increased number of screens has already made an impact with Barbie earning an impressive $7.3 million during its second weekend, a negligible drop, with the film’s China total reaching $25.5 million, according to figures from regional box office data company Artisan Gateway.
And the coming weeks look brighter for Barbie, as the film has penetrated the discourse in China, something that Hollywood films rarely do these days. Chinese feminists are flocking to see the film and urging others to do so, as both an antidote to the usual male-orientated patriotic action film that dominates the box office in the country but also for the themes found in the film. Notably, Barbie has sneaked past China’s notoriously stringent censors, despite the film tackling issues of feminism and toxic masculinity and featuring prominent LGBTQ+ characters.
Still, despite the good news, Barbie likely won’t make anywhere near the same impact at the China box office as it has in other markets around the world. Maoyan still projects that the film will top out at around $36 million for its China run
Elsewhere, historical fantasy epic Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms, the first film in the Fengshen Trilogy, won a second consecutive week, earning another $57.6 million, for a total cume of $155.5 million after two weeks on release. In second place was Da Peng’s comedy One and Only which debuted to $36.2 million. Rounding out the top five were holdovers Chang An (in third with $22.4 million) and Never Say Never (in fourth with $12 million).