While you might argue that all respective parties hoped that The Great Wall would make more than $171 million in China, that’s no small potatoes. But, warts and all, it stands as another example of how, once you get past a certain budgetary level, you can’t just depend on China to turn your big movie into a big hit. and was intended as a cross-over hit) or a Chinese production (it was mostly financed by Legendary East, Le Vision and China Film Group and was designed to kick butt in what is the world’s second-biggest moviegoing market).
The question is whether you can call it a Hollywood film (it was partially funded by Universal/Comcast Corp. If you count it as a Chinese film, it’s the fourth-biggest such hit of last year behind The Mermaid ($553m with $526m in China alone), Your Name (a $327m-grossing animated film from Japan that opened in August of last year) and La La Land. If you count it as a Hollywood movie, it’s the second-biggest “not based on anything” live-action release of 2016 behind La La Land. It’ll top out with over $300m worldwide, as it opens in Brazil, Chile, Italy and Estonia over the next few days with a release date in Japan set for April 14. With $269 million thus far, the Zhang Yimou action fantasy isn’t precisely a disaster.