You wrote a while back about how violent US films export well financially.
I missed "The Third Wife" in the theaters here.. by Ash Mayfair, an NYU grad from Vietnam, set in 19C Vietnam. It only did $81 thousand in US box office so it was gone from the theaters quickly despite better reviews than anything else. Apparently it did $147 thousand in Vietnam in the opening weekend but it was banned by the government after a week because the lead actress has love scenes at 13.
I thought that the robust business done by Long Day's Journey Into Night in China, a long, slow Andrei Tarkovsky pastiche, indicated that the Chinese audience was getting ahead of Western audiences for art films but then I just saw this in the Wikipedia:
"Despite its unusual story structure, the film was marketed and distributed in China as a romantic event film, and an ideal date movie for its New Year's Eve release. It also received a wide theatrical release. The strategy worked; by 25 December, the film had already sold 100 million yuan ($15 million US dollars) in presales tickets.[8] Despite its strong presales, it faded quickly from the box-office charts, having grossed $41 million US during its initial three weeks (most of it from its 31 December premier).[5]
In China, its massive early box office success led to a backlash; the hashtag “can’t understand Long Day’s Journey Into Night” trended on social media, and users of the ticketing platform Maoyan drove its aggregate user rating down.[5]"
I agree that it's a long film demanding on audiences and I like Bi Gan's first film better. It was, in fact, shocking to me that such a film would sell well, and apparently it didn't. It isn't in my view a classic that would attract die hard advocates. In the US it did about a half million in theaters, which alone would have meant losing money.
1 comment:
You wrote a while back about how violent US films export well financially.
I missed "The Third Wife" in the theaters here.. by Ash Mayfair, an NYU grad from Vietnam, set in 19C Vietnam. It only did $81 thousand in US box office so it was gone from the theaters quickly despite better reviews than anything else. Apparently it did $147 thousand in Vietnam in the opening weekend but it was banned by the government after a week because the lead actress has love scenes at 13.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/third-wife-pulled-release-vietnam-1212887
I thought that the robust business done by Long Day's Journey Into Night in China, a long, slow Andrei Tarkovsky pastiche, indicated that the Chinese audience was getting ahead of Western audiences for art films but then I just saw this in the Wikipedia:
"Despite its unusual story structure, the film was marketed and distributed in China as a romantic event film, and an ideal date movie for its New Year's Eve release. It also received a wide theatrical release. The strategy worked; by 25 December, the film had already sold 100 million yuan ($15 million US dollars) in presales tickets.[8] Despite its strong presales, it faded quickly from the box-office charts, having grossed $41 million US during its initial three weeks (most of it from its 31 December premier).[5]
In China, its massive early box office success led to a backlash; the hashtag “can’t understand Long Day’s Journey Into Night” trended on social media, and users of the ticketing platform Maoyan drove its aggregate user rating down.[5]"
I agree that it's a long film demanding on audiences and I like Bi Gan's first film better. It was, in fact, shocking to me that such a film would sell well, and apparently it didn't. It isn't in my view a classic that would attract die hard advocates. In the US it did about a half million in theaters, which alone would have meant losing money.
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