China Box Office: AFTER EARTH Ghosts Its Way To The Top

Will Smith's domestic turkey, After Earth, enters the Chinese charts in pole position, but only just ahead of Johnnie To's still-strong Blind Detective.

Rank Title Origin 8/7-14/7 (US$M) Total (US$M) Screening days
1 After Earth USA $13.89 $13.89 3
2 Blind Detective Hong Kong/China $12.62 $26.55 11
3 The Rooftop Taiwan $9.41 $9.50 4
4 Tiny Times China $7.78 $75.73 18
5 Seer III China $5.20 $5.20 3
6 Man of Steel USA $4.17 $62.51 25
7 Badges of Fury China $2.46 $45.30 24
8 Bullet to the Head USA $1.84 $1.84 6
9 Man of Tai Chi USA/China $1.38 $4.28 10
10 Happy HeroesChina $0.90 $5.41 17

After Earth, the much-maligned science fiction adventure from M. Night Shyamalan scored a healthy opening in China last weekend, taking a respectable RMB85 million in its first 3 days, putting it just ahead of a strong second week performance from Johnnie To's Blind Detective. The Andy Lau/Sammi Cheng comedy thriller did RMB78 million in its second week, to take its 11-day haul to RMB164 million.

Taiwanese popstar-turned-director Jay Chou's sophomore effort, The Rooftop, opened in third place, taking RMB59 million in four days, ahead of Tiny Times, which has now made close to RMB470 million in just 18 days. Chinese animation Seer III could only muster a little over RMB30 million in its first weekend on release, while Walter Hill's Bullet to the Head starring Sylvester Stallone, took just RMB11.3 million in 6 days.

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel fell out of the Top 5, but stays ahead of Jet Li cop comedy Badges of Fury, both of which are in their fourth weeks. The Keanu Reeves-directed Man of Tai Chi, which has yet to open in the West, fell to ninth place in its second week, and has to-date taken RMB26 million in 10 days.

Next weekend Korean/Chinese co-production Mr. Go, a family-friendly sports comedy about a baseball-playing gorilla starring Xu Jiao, goes head-to-head with Roland Emmerich's White House Down, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx.

Box office figures courtesy of EntGroup

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