“From Vegas to Macau 3” Tops Box Office in Hong Kong and Mainland China
From Vegas to Macau 3 <賭城風雲III>, which stars Chow Yun Fat (周潤發) and Andy Lau (劉德華), courted controversy recently when director Wong Jing (王晶) started posting a series of posts containing nationalistic, pro-China views to promote the film.
This prompted numerous Hong Kong netizens to express their unhappiness with Wong Jing’s views, with some of them even instigating a movement to boycott the film. In response, Wong Jing countered that the total box office sales in Hong Kong for From Vegas to Macau 3 was only one-twenty-fifth of the box office sales in Mainland China, and was thus not worried at all about the potential boycotting.
In any case, the Hong Kong fans did not actually deliver on their threat to boycott the film. The film opened on February 6, but various major cinemas started accepting ticket pre-orders on February 2. While the number of people who pre-ordered tickets was relatively small, the moment the film premiered, its box office was sold out across the city. From Vegas to Macau 3 did so well that it topped the box office on its opening day, beating other popular films like Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, and Alvin and the Chipmunks 4, raking in about $346,500 USD in box office sales on a single day. To-date, the film has earned a total of approximately $657,000 USD in box office sales. Tickets to From Vegas to Macau 3 have been so in-demand that it has virtually been impossible to get a ticket for the film this week.
The film’s box office performance in Mainland China has been even more impressive. The film earned approximately $19.2 million USD in box office sales on its opening day.
Source: ihktv.com
This article is written by Jingles for JayneStars.com.
Not sure in HK but I read The Mermaid beat them all in China so I am not sure how accurate or recent is this report since it made zero mention of The Mermaid.
@funnlim The Mermaid K.O.’ed this wong jing flick on opening day at the box office making more than 40 million dollars/270 million yuan. Doubled what this movie made on the first day.
Obviously this is a biased report or attempted marketing.
@peanutbutterjelly The problem is with the translation of the title. I read the original article in Chinese and all of the content is referring to HK box office specifically. The only mention of Mainland China is the last paragraph, where it does accurately say that the film’s box office exceeded the 1 million dollar mark, but it never said that it ‘tops the box office’ (that statement is inaccurate, since The Mermaid currently ‘tops the box office’ in Mainland). Chinese title of the original article doesn’t mention China either. Maybe whoever translated this article should fix the title, since it’s obviously misleading….
I just do not understand HKies. After all the bashing they give TVB dramas, they can actually pay money to go see this rubbish of a ‘movie’??? Leaves me speechless!! Most M’sians have gotten word out to just save your money, or rather support our own productions ie Ola Bola etc.
p/s In fact I had not pay money to watch a Wong Jing movie for years; utter con job, depending on big stars only!
I’m still planning on watching Vegas to Macau eventually because of Jacky, but not like I’m in a huge rush to do so right this moment. Been reading the reviews and various commentary on the movie and seems like the results are all over the place – some people like the movie, some hate it, others feel it’s no better or worse than the typical CNY fare. It’s pretty much ‘confirmed’ already that the script sucks (no surprise, since it was written by Wong Jing himself) and the story is basically rubbish. And for anyone expecting a “gambling” movie, well they can pretty much look elsewhere because no gambling takes place whatsoever (Wong Jing obviously wrote the script with Mainland censors in mind, since gambling-themed movies are banned in China). The only saving grace to the movie is the cast (and the ‘HK golden era’ nostalgia to some extent), which no doubt is what most audiences are watching this movie for.
Personally, I find it quite ironic that the movie is in the top spot in HK – the market that Wong Jing doesn’t give a crap about — but only comes in second in Mainland (The Mermaid’s box office has such a huge lead on Vegas right now that I highly doubt it will be able to overtake that #1 spot…in fact, I saw reports this morning that Vegas got bumped to 3rd). Looks like Wong Jing’s blatant pandering to Mainland isn’t drawing the results expected…maybe this will finally make him shut up and stop bashing the market (HK) that made him famous in the first place….
@llwy12
His movies are indeed shoddy, but he had left his mark on the HK film industry. Whether you hate or like him, he has provided significant contribution to the industry. We got to remember HK is a very small city with a declining cinema audience because they much prefer to watch pirate version online.
Who would want to invest in HK when the people refuse to spend anything? He’s not really bashing the market. There is simply no market.
Name another person who has contributed as much as a writer/director/producer as Wong Jing in the past 20-30 years. You will realise this man can be an asshole but you haven’t got anyone to replace him or do more for HK.
@gingermessiah No doubt that Wong Jing has made significant contributions to the industry and I don’t think anyone will refute that. But there are definitely others as well, such as Raymond Wong, Johnnie To, Wong Kar Wai, Ann Hui, Peter Chan, Tsui Hark, Derek Yee, for example (there are more but these are the ones who come to mind right now) — all of whom I would classify as being top level directors/producers (and in some cases, scriptwriters as well), with long prolific careers and who have contributed just as much (if not more) to the industry over the past 30 years. All of these directors have also shifted focus to Mainland over the years, which makes sense due to the lack of market in HK like you mentioned, but the difference is in the attitudes (and maturity levels to some extent) — while they also recognize the decline of HK cinema in the city, they don’t constantly “put down” the HK market and HK audiences like Wong Jing does (that “HK is only 1/25th of China” remark is actually quite mild compared to the other stuff he’s said). Not caring about the HK market is one thing and of course he has the right to feel that way, but there’s no need for him to be so antagonistic about it, especially since he is not the only one who has contributed greatly to the industry.
@gingermessiah Sorry for the separate post but I actually just thought of something…
If we want to talk about contribution to the movie industry, I actually feel Johnnie To has done more than Wong Jing has. Johnnie To is also known for having an aggressive personality and saying things that might rub people the wrong way, but the difference is that he does so in a more mature fashion rather than constantly throwing tantrums like a child (which is how Wong Jing often acts – like a 5 year old whose toys just got taken away, lol). In addition to his responsibilities as director and producer, Johnnie To has actually been grooming the younger generation of filmmakers in HK the past few years through his position as a member of the HK Arts Development Council. He and his production company Milkyway Image teamed up with the HKAPA in a talent search type program to scout out potential recruits interested in screenwriting/directing/producing and gave them opportunities to showcase their talent. He serves as a mentor and partner for these newbie directors/scriptwriters, advising them on various aspects of filmmaking – most importantly though, he’s been lending his prestige and clout in the industry as well as the multitude of talent in his production company – which includes the likes of award-winning screenwriters and directors such as Wai Ka Fai, Au Kin Yee, Yau Nai Hoi, Yip Tin Shing, etc. — to support these newbie directors with their projects. One of these projects is the film Trivisa, which is directed by 3 young directors from the program – the film was recently chosen as the opening film for the Berlin Film Festival. One of those young directors, Au Man Kit, was also one of the co-directors of Ten Years (though the film has nothing to do with Johnnie To’s company) – a highly acclaimed indie film about the HK/Mainland conflict that recently took HK by storm when it managed to rake in 5 million HKD in box office receipts as well as score a nomination for Best Picture in this year’s HK Film Awards.
I don’t know about you guys, but to me, compared to what Johnnie To has done so far, Wong Jing’s “contributions” pale in comparisons – outside of filming a boatload of raunchy movies, shooting off his mouth left and right, and ‘kowtowing’ to the Mainland, what efforts have Wong Jing made to support / preserve / develop the HK film industry? (And no, the ‘grooming’ of all those talentless Jing girls into so-called actresses DOES NOT count).
@llwy12
Do you know how Monkey King 2 is doing?
@incipio Depends on which box office receipts you’re looking at and whether you’re counting only the 3 main LNY movies or all the other ones that premiered in theaters around the same time (including quite a few Hollywood productions). If we look at cumulative ticket sales for the 3 main LNY movies, Mermaid is at the top in both HK and Mainland, followed by Vegas to Macau and then Monkey King. In Mainland, the ticket sales for Mermaid has surpassed the billion dollar mark (last time I checked, which was prior to the weekend, cumulative box off was more than 1.5 billion RMB, which is more than double the 600 million RMB or so that both Vegas and Monkey King have accumulated). In HK, the numbers are a bit more even between Mermaid and Vegas, with Mermaid at about 27 million HKD, Vegas at 21 million HKD, and Monkey King 2 at about 13 million HKD (again, this is prior to the weekend, which of course are huge movie-going days for the public, so the numbers may have changed already).
By the looks of it, there’s no way that Vegas and Monkey King will be able to catch up to Mermaid in terms of ticket sales in Mainland China (though Monkey King might end up surpassing Vegas, since their numbers have been running pretty close). HK is a different story altogether, as it looks like Mermaid and Vegas are pretty ‘close’ in terms of the numbers – who will end up at the top remains to be seen…