ESC

China’s Most Expensive Film Pulled From Theaters After Bombing

Asura, China’s most expensive film to date and what was hyped to be their Lord of the Rings style epic, bombed harder than Dave Chappelle at a Klan rally over the weekend.

Box office numbers were so bad that it was pulled from theaters on Sunday after having only made a little over $7 million. The film cost $113 million to make and included financiers such as Jack Ma’s Alibaba Pictures. Alibaba Pictures says it’s going to re-edit and re-release the film at a later date.

If the film isn’t re-released, it’s $106 million loss would rank it as one of the worst flops in film. Although, it wouldn’t unseat the current king of flops, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, which lost $125 million.

Producers were quick to point their finger at a “water army” aka online trolls. In their own allegations of FAKE NEWS or, rather, FAKE REVIEWS, producers say the mobile-ticketing platform Maoyan was flooded with negative reviews. Maoyan is owned by Tencent, rival to Alibaba. Alibaba’s own ticketing service, Tao Piaopiao, had higher reviews because they would be nothing but honest about a movie they were heavily invested in.

However, Asura’s dismal performance was more likely because of poor audience tracking and being seemingly derivative of other fantasy films. As well as going against the blockbuster Dying to Survive and the hotly anticipated Hidden Man.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments