As the world’s second-largest market for cinema, any movie that finds massive box office success in China is guaranteed to end up as one of the highest-grossing titles to hit theaters in its year of release, with No More Bets the latest impressive example to come along.
After just four weeks playing on local screens, the thriller inspired by thousands of real-life fraud cases has continued hoovering up ticket sales like it’s nobody’s business. Not only that, but by crossing $470 million on home soil alone, the film has officially broken into the list of the year’s Top 10 biggest earners.
That elevates No More Bets above the ongoing and immensely impressive legs shown by Disney and Pixar’s Elemental, not to mention the vastly more expensive likes of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, John Wick: Chapter 4, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. In addition, by this time next week it’ll pass Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to move up to ninth on the annual rankings.
China’s status as a hotbed and potentially lucrative revenue stream for Hollywood blockbusters has been significantly dampened ever since the pandemic took hold, and it’s becoming clearer and clearer that crowds aren’t really all that interested in what their Stateside counterparts are putting out, either.
After all, Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms is closing in on $350 million from but a solitary market, while Chinese ticket sales are also going to be blamed for the near-inevitable Meg 3 after Jason Statham’s sequel continued its impressive showing to edge past the same figure in spite of a domestic VOD release following just three weeks in United States multiplexes.
