China's box-office hit gets extended run, to join National Day holiday competition
Chinese war drama film "The Eight Hundred," which has grossed over 2.5 billion yuan (about 365 million U.S. dollars) in China to date, is set to extend its box office run by one month until Oct. 21.
This means the top-grossing title in the summer movie season will join the competition in the upcoming National Day holiday, during which major films like Chinese comedy feature "My People, My Homeland" and the long-awaited animated film "Legend of Deification" will be released.
"The Eight Hundred" continued to smash records at the box office since its release on Aug. 21, about one month after theaters reopened in the world's second-biggest box-office market following months of closure due to COVID-19.
As of Saturday morning, "The Eight Hundred" had raked in about 2.57 billion yuan in China, according to data compiled by Maoyan, a movie-ticketing and film data platform.
The seven-day National Day holiday last year proved a lucrative season, contributing 5 billion yuan to China's yearly box office of over 64 billion yuan.
Similar to the 2019 blockbuster "My People, My Country" that also debuted around National Day, Oct. 1, the upcoming "My People, My Homeland" adopts a storytelling technique of collective creation -- one film contains multiple stories by different directors.
Comprised of five stories, "My People, My Homeland" has one of the best known Chinese filmmakers, Zhang Yimou, as the executive producer, and Ning Hao as the general director.
"Legend of Deification," a feature from the companies behind last year's China box office champion "Ne Zha," which grossed more than 5 billion yuan in China, tells the story of Jiang Ziya, a mythological figure.
Jiang Ziya is a genius strategist from the novel "Fengshen Yanyi," or "The Investiture of the Gods," a Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) book that inspired "Ne Zha," the Chinese film about its eponymous hero.
"Leap," a film that puts the spotlight on the Chinese women's national volleyball team, is slated for release on Sept. 30, the eve of National Day. It is directed by Peter Ho-Sun Chan and stars Gong Li. Enditem