Does China’s lead in the global premiere of ‘Avengers: Endgame’ herald a new global distribution strategy for Hollywood blockbusters?
- Movie insiders expect the 22nd movie in the Marvel Universe to have a five-day opening of between US$270 million and US$320 million
- ‘Avengers: Endgame’ reported US$107 million in pre-sold tickets before the movie was even shown in China
Until recently, every major studio picture would be widely released in the United States first, before rolling out to Europe, and then on to Asia, often weeks later.
These “territorial release windows” were sequenced in that order because foreign sales of Hollywood movies were significantly influenced by how well the film sold in America first.
Those days are over. Breaking with tradition, Disney’s mega-blockbuster Avengers: Endgame, the 22nd instalment of the Marvel Universe franchise and purported to be the last with this star line up, opened last week in China two days before it did in the United States.
Furthermore, fuelled by its performance in the China market, the film is heading for a record-shattering opening weekend in both North America and overseas markets.
Many business insiders agreed that such global release windows are shifting due to the Chinese market, which used to be a small, virtually overlooked market, but has rocketed over the past five years to become the second largest market in the world, eclipsing Japan in 2013, and projected by Ampere Analysis to surpass the US market by 2022.
“The importance of China as a movie market cannot be overstated,” said Comscore’s senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian, noting China’s meteoric rise over the past decade, reported as US$8.9 billion in 2018 according to Comscore, a US media measurement and analytics company.
