A Chinese blockbuster hopeful backed by Alibaba Pictures Group and with a reported budget of over $100 million, was abruptly pulled from cinemas after a lackluster opening weekend at the box office.
Producers are reportedly planning to rework the movie and release it again at a later date.
Unless the film achieves much greater success the second time round, Asura’s $105m loss would make it one of the biggest flops in movie history.
The move highlights the challenges facing China as it seeks to promote home-grown productions to rival imported Hollywood films. Several big-budget Chinese films have flopped while more modest productions have done well.
“Asura”, a fantasy epic based on Tibetan mythology, was yanked from cinemas by producers after it brought in a meager 49.5 million yuan ($7.4 million) and received a lowly rating of 3.1 on the Chinese movie review site Douban.
Asura is something of a warning for Chinese producers on the perils of big-budget movie making.
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China, which is on track to overtake the North America film market, has become an increasingly important region for global producers looking to pump up their box office returns, despite a quota on imported films and strict censorship.
The elaborate fantasy film was backed by some of China’s major movie companies: Alibaba Pictures, Zhenjian Film Studio and Ningxia Film Group
Loosely based on Buddhist mythology, the movie tells the story of a shepherd protecting a mythical heavenly realm from attack.
During the three days it was showing in cinemas though, it received an abysmal rating on Chinese film review site Douban.
With China overtaking the US as the world’s biggest film market, the plan for Asura was to kick off a major fantasy franchise akin to Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones.
While Chinese film productions have not typically had the same international reach as Hollywood films, there have been several China-Hollywood co-productions in recent years.
One of the most high-profile was The Great Wall, which cost $150m, although it too disappointed at the box office.
(Excerpts) Read More at: Reuters.com and BBC.com
