X-Men has mighty China opening

The film, which racked up nearly 6.5 million admissions, was boosted by the appearance of Chinese actress Fan Bingbing in the cast and the visit of other key cast members, including Hugh Jackman and Peter Dinklage, to Beijing for promotional duties. Captain America: The Winter Soldier grossed $39.23m in its first three days in China earlier this year.

Zhang Yimou’s Coming Home, which played Out Of Competition in Cannes last week, came in second with $19.88m in its second week (May 19-25) for a cumulative total of $33.5m. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 dropped to third place with a weekly haul of $10.73m and a cume of $92.03m.

Leste Chen’s mystery thriller The Great Hypnotist, which was selling strongly at Cannes for Wanda Media and Fortissimo Films, grossed a further $3.28m for fourth place in the chart and a cume of $43.59m. In fifth position, local romantic comedy My Old Classmate took $2.33m for a cume of $73.05m.

Chen Zhonghao’s romantic comedy Broadcasting Girl came in sixth in its opening week, grossing $1.79m in six days. US-Korean animated feature The Outback (aka Koala Kid), directed by Kyung Ho Lee, came in seventh with $480,000 and a cume of $4.6m, while action drama Hummingbird (aka Redemption), starring Jason Statham, came in eighth with $450,000 and a cume of $5.19m.

Rounding out the chart were local romances Impetuous Love In Action and To Love Somebody, which took $270,000 and $240,000 respectively.

*China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) had announced that box office revenue for 2014 passed RMB10bn ($1.6bn) on May 21. The benchmark was passed in 141 days, compared to 170 days in 2013. During the period Jan 1-May 21, 2014, local films took a 56% market share.