Covid surge slows down the flight of ‘The Batman’ in China

Mumbai, March 19 (IANS): The current Covid-19 surge in China has seriously affected the mainland China box office collections of the recently released Robert Pattinson-starrer ‘The Batman’.

Of late, the trend has been the same for films of all origins at China’s box office, reports ‘Variety’

As per ‘Variety’, by 3:30 p.m. on its first full day, the film had earned a lowly RMB12.1 million, or $1.90 million at prevailing currency rates, according to provisional data from ticketing agency Maoyan. Including previews from Thursday, “The Batman” had a total by early afternoon of RMB13.7 million, or $2.15 million.

However, there seems to be some respite for the Warner Bros. noir as it secured top position at the mainland China box office chart with a 70% market share, more than five times greater than second placed ‘The Battle at Lake Changjin II’.

Previous Batman films have scored reasonably strongly in China: ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ raked in $53 million in 2012; ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’ earned $97 million in 2016; and ‘Justice League’ made $106 million in 2017 when China became the first country to premiere the film.

Since 2020, Chinese audiences have been offered fewer Hollywood films than in previous years, a situation created by a smaller flow of U.S. commercial cinema during 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and by Chinese government action to crimp imports of American films in 2021.

As per ‘Variety’, Disney and Sony have not been able to get import approval for five of their Marvel films and there has not been a U.S. superhero movie released in China for over a year. Instead, Chinese audiences have been treated to a succession of patriotic locally-made blockbusters that have played especially well at holiday peaks.