China’s box-office has quickly become one of the world’s largest marketplaces. Just take last year’s Wolf Warrior 2; a sequel that made £641 million (5.679 billion yuan) in the country alone. Even this year’s Avengers: Infinity War, a Hollywood movie, has taken over £270 million in China.
Unfortunately, although business has never been better for cinemas, not every movie can be a blockbuster smash – something Asura, hailed as China’s most expensive film ever made, discovered this week.
Pitched as an epic fantasy franchise that would follow in Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones’ footsteps, the movie made less than 50 million yuan (£5.64 million) over the weekend. That’s far less than the reported budget, which tops 750 million yuan (£85 million) and paid for top-end actors, crew, and special effects.
The film – based on Buddhist mythology – has done so terribly that the producers are pulling it from cinemas, the producers hoping to rework the feature and release again at a later date. A representative for Zhenjian Film, credited as lead producer on the movie, told Chinese news site Sina ”This decision was made not only because of the bad box office. We plan to make some changes to the film and release it again.”
Asura stars heartthrob Lei Wu as a heroic teenager who must save a godly dimension of pure desire after it’s threatened by the lower kingdom. Tony Ka Fai Leung and Carina Lau, both veteran Hong Kong actors, also feature as mythical demigods.
Before the movie’s release, mentions of the title on the social media website Weibo were in the millions. However, a poor rating on the aggregate website Douban.com, which acts as the Chinese equivalent of IMDB, reportedly put off many cinemagoers with the uncommonly low score of 3.1.
The score has been so low online that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the producers are alleging sabotage after spotting many one-star reviews.
