Talking Entertainment: 3D Dinosaurs, Exploding Robots, and Zhang Ziyi

Steven Schwankert | Aug 16, 2013 1:00 pm | Add a comment | 1813 reads

Mr. Nick Richards is away this week, so I will be the one talking to you about entertainment this time.

This week, it's mostly about film. Yet another dispute between Hollywood and Chollywood was resolved, this time regarding the payment of revenues from Hollywood films released in China. On Tuesday, Christopher Dodd, former US senator and now head of the Motion Picture Association of America, announced that China Film Group agreed to pay the US$150-200 million in box office take that has been outstanding. That still represents only about 25 percent of what those movies grossed in China, now the world's second-largest cinema market.

Case in point: the Jaegers of Pacific Rim held on to China's top box office spot last week, despite the release of the sequel to the summer's biggest cinematic surprise, Tiny Times. I still can't get over the idea that a successful film had its sequel hit the silver screen in the same summer. Take that, Peter Jackson!

Anyway, Pacific Rim has pulled in almost US$34 million so far. We gave you five reasons to go see it, and apparently, you did. I guess all those Transformer fans still sad over the exhibition upheaval are salving their wounds with other giant, destructive robots.

For all the nasty things said online about Zhang Ziyi, and despite the continuing buzz around Fan Bingbing, it's Zhang who made the most money last year, raking in just under US$20 million. That's interesting because I can't name her most recent film off the top of my head. Good for her, though.

Jurassic Park 3D opens Aug 20 in China cinemas, hence the photo above.

Here are some more arts and culture events not to miss this week:

Photo: fanpop.com