Wen Muye’s Once Upon a Time in the Middle East stayed at No. 1 at the mainland China box office for a third weekend in a row on Aug. 28-30, taking in 174.4 million yuan ($25.6 million). Since opening on Aug. 11, it has already pulled in more than 1.7 billion yuan ($253 million) in mainland China, and current forecasts now have it finishing around 2.5 billion yuan.
You can see the effect in the broader market. China’s summer box office has now passed 12.4 billion yuan ($1.84 billion), its strongest showing in three years, while the country’s total 2024 box office moved past 27 billion yuan, or about $4 billion, by Aug. 22. Daily revenue also stayed above 100 million yuan for more than 40 consecutive days.
Four of China’s five biggest summer releases are local films. If you’ve been keeping an eye on the country’s theatrical rebound, this streak deserves attention.
The movie comes from Dying to Survive director Wen Muye, with producer Dirty Monkeys, the company founded by Ning Hao, behind it. That pairing looks like a big reason Once Upon a Time in the Middle East is landing as both a prestige title and a broad commercial hit.
Once Upon a Time in the Middle East is now playing across mainland China, with a wider rollout still to come in Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East. Its box-office run is also feeding China’s growing “film+” business, which links movie success to tourism, dining and merchandise.
