Spider-Man: Brand New Day held its grip atop China’s box office for a second weekend, pulling in $28.9 million (RMB 196.6 million) over the Aug. 7-9 frame for a local total of $185.4 million (RMB 1.26 billion) in 12 days.
The Sony tentpole launched in China with a massive $121.3 million five-day haul, of which $19 million came from Imax, a record for the format in the market. The film is now days away from surpassing the $199 million earned by 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, the last U.S. superhero release to clear $100 million in China.
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But it was Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which doesn’t officially open in Chinese theaters until Friday, that arguably delivered the weekend’s most surprising number. Playing Saturday and Sunday only, and exclusively on Imax and CINITY screens, Universal’s adaptation of the Greek classic took $6.9 million (RMB 46.8 million) in previews — enough for fifth place and roughly 7 percent of the entire weekend’s business from a tiny sliver of the nation’s screens. Earlier four-city previews on Aug. 1-2 drew a 95.2 percent occupancy rate, which local media reports, citing Dengta, described as an all-time high for the market.
The 177-minute epic, the first feature shot entirely on Imax film cameras, has scored 8.3 on review site Douban, the summer’s highest rating for a live-action release. The Matt Damon-starring epic crossed $1 billion worldwide last week, and China now appears poised to boost its global sales significantly.
Pearl Studio’s All Wishes Come True held to second in its fourth weekend with $20.4 million (RMB 138.8 million). The animated comic fantasy from director Mu Zhengyang, which reimagines the classic folk tale of the Eight Immortals, has now earned $210.6 million (RMB 1.43 billion), China’s biggest peformance by an animated feature this year.
Third place came from previews for another yet-to-open tentpole. Once Upon a Time in the Middle East collected $15 million (RMB 101.8 million) across two days of previews ahead of its Tuesday release. Directed by Wen Muye (Dying to Survive) and produced by Ning Hao’s Dirty Monkeys Studio, the Imax-shot war comedy stars Shen Teng, one of China’s most bankable comic actors, as a Chinese cook who travels to the Middle East to work off his debts, opens a restaurant with a local partner — and then finds himself trapped when a military conflict erupts.
To Your Island opened in fourth with $7.9 million (RMB 53.6 million). The animated fantasy romance — adapted from a web novel and directed by Zhou Haoran — is the first film produced in-house by Enlight Animation, the specialty arm of Ne Zha 2 backer Enlight Pictures.
Absent from the top five for the first time since its July 11 release was Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Soccer, which stood at around $318.5 million after the weekend and remains the summer’s biggest title.
Nationwide grosses totaled $97.3 million for the weekend, down about a quarter from the previous frame. China’s 2026 box office now stands at $3.57 billion, off 31.8 percent from the same point last year — a comparison distorted by Ne Zha 2, which alone took more than $2 billion in the market in the first half of 2025. The gap has narrowed steadily since March, when the market trailed by nearly 56 percent.
The Odyssey opens wide on Friday, in a test of whether Chinese moviegoers’ renewed appetite for Hollywood extends beyond the friendly neighborhood spider.
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