Especially in China, the Warcraft movie was a real hit. But why is this country so special?
Many factors come together in China
While the Warcraft movie was not well received in its home country, the USA, but relatively well in Europe, it was a great success in China and broke one record after another. But why is that actually?
One reason is certainly the large population. With over 1.6 billion inhabitants, it’s no surprise that some go to the cinema, but many more factors come into play. Of the still nearly 7 million WoW players, around half come from China – and most players are male, between 20 and 35 years old, which generally means they also bring their girlfriends to the cinema. Additionally, the relatively cheap timing, as there was a public holiday in China at the time of the release – and what could be better than a trip to the cinema?
Another special factor is the actor Daniel Wu, who portrays the Orc Gul’dan. Wu has a large fan base in China and many fans likely flocked to the cinemas just to support their favorite.
Or is it fraud after all?
As reported by GameStar, there are also doubts about the accuracy of the revenues. Especially “suspicious” is that the revenues in the first week were many times larger than in the second week. In the first 7 days, the film earned $156 million, in the second only $25 million. That’s a drop of over 70%. Most of the earnings came from the cinemas of “Dalian Wanda” – and they had only acquired Legendary Pictures – the production company of the film – at the beginning of the year.
Cortyn says: Maybe the Chinese are just such big fans who – like many others – waited nearly 8 years for the film and then used the holiday weekend to see it as early as possible. At least in my circle, all acquaintances also saw the film within the first three days.
