The Two Blockbusters Continue to Do Well

Deadline revealed that the bulk of last weekend’s movie business came from China – and of course, the focus will be on the two blockbusters I’ve amply covered since October – and which, not surprisingly, continue to do well. 

“No Time To Die” debuted to an estimated $28.2 million, repping the third best start for a Hollywood title in that market this year. 

And in the UK, the James Bond franchise becomes the sixth highest grossing film of all time, surpassing both “Titanic” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”. 

As projected, in the 72 combined Universal and MGM markets, Daniel Craig’s final turn as 007 crossed the $600 million global mark over the weekend. $605.8 million to be precise. 

There’s even better news for China's “The Battle at Lake Changjin”! 

The war epic becomes the highest-grossing film worldwide for this year, as well as being the second highest-grossing film in Chinese film history. 

According to Chinese ticketing platform Maoyan, the film crossed the 5.47 billion yuan ($854 million) mark on Sunday. This means that it has overtaken the Lunar New Year tear-jerker film “Hi, Mom”, which grossed 5.41 billion yuan in 2021 although “Wolf Warrior 2”, the 2017 Chinese action film is still sitting pretty at No.1, having earned 5.69 billion yuan. 

And war movie fans may be interested to know that a poster for a sequel about a battle at Lake Changjin's Shuimen Bridge was released on Thursday. Insiders divulged that shooting will begin in the winter of 2021.