Cruise keeps his hand on the box office till in China

February 17, 2012

Tom Cruise vehicle "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" still king of China box office. — Pic courtesy of Paramount Pictures.HONG KONG, Feb 17 — There seems little chance of the Tom Cruise vehicle “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” being knocked from the top of the Chinese box office charts in the very near future as the film grabbed an impressive US$21.44 million (RM65.1 million) from its second full week of screening.

After 16 days in Chinese cinemas, the film has now collected 482 million yuan (RM232.1 million), according to Beijing-based film industry watchers Ent Group. That was enough to keep the family friendly actioner “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” out of reach, even though that film picked up a healthy US$15.23 million (RM46.35 million) over its first weekend.

Trailing way behind those two productions was the romance “I Do”, which picked up a disappointing US$3.16 million (RM9.61 million), despite the presence in its cast of Li Bingbing, Sun Honglei and Duan Yihong.

The dazzling run of the nostalgic drama “Always: Sunset on Third Street 3” was brought to an end in Japan, as film-goers flocked to see the Hollywood version of the thriller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

David Fincher’s production picked up just on US$3 million (RM9.13 million) over its weekend debut to edge out “Always”, which claimed US$2.9 million (RM8.83 million), according to Tokyo Hive. In total, the local film now has US$32.6 million (RM99.22 million) in its coffers after a month of screenings.

Veteran South Korean actor Choi Min-sik has a string of hits to his name — including the acclaimed “Swiri” (1999) and “Oldboy” (2003) — and he has once again proved box office gold as his gritty thriller “Nameless Gangster” has been all the rage in his homeland for the second week in a row.

Han Cinema reports that “Nameless Gangster” added just over 830,000 admissions in its second week, meaning a little shy of 2.5 million tickets have now been sold for screenings of the film.
There was some good news over the past week for veteran director Johnnie To in his hometown of Hong Kong.

To’s latest release — the romantic thriller “Romancing in Thin Air” — has proved somewhat of a disappointment in mainland China, picking up just over US$2 million (RM6.09 million). But To can take some solace in the fact the film went straight to No. 1 in Hong Kong, with just under US$500,000 (RM1.5 million) from its first week of release, according to Box Office Mojo. — Relaxnews