On the first day of release (September 3), the film grossed more than $2.05m (RMB14m), similar to the opening gross of The Forbidden Kingdom, with $2.33m (RMB16m), and of last year's local blockbuster Assembly, with $2.19m (RMB15m)
The film was released on more than 600 film prints across the country. With the strong opening gross, the film's mainland China distributor, China Film Group, estimatesit should easily surpass the RMB100m threshold and is aiming for RMB200m.
Despite the sales record, there were complaints from the Chinese audience about the dubbing performances. Originally, the film was mostly English-speaking with some Chinese spoken by Chinese characters. But the mainland release version is dubbed into Chinese and no original version has been shown in cinemas.
'Some audience complained that the Chinese voice did not match with the performance of the actors,' reported local paper Tianjin Daily News.
Besides, some audience noticed that at the end of the film, half of the credit roll was edited out, including the credit of Hong Kong actress Isabella Leung. Several cinemas admitted that they received a notice from China Film Group to cut the last 250 metres of the film.
Responding to the deletion of credit rolls, China Film Group spokesperson Weng Li said he did not know about the notice. But if there are some edits to the film, it should be a technical issue, not about the contents of the film, he said.
As a full co-production, The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor can bypass the annual quota of 20 revenue-sharing films and the foreign partners can enjoy a greater share of the box office. However, a co-production film may face closer scrutiny in the shooting and reviewing process.
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