Resident Evil, the Constantin Film and Sony Pictures reboot, was the No. 1 film in mainland China for a third straight weekend, taking RMB37.6m ($5.6m) over 23–25 October, according to Artisan Gateway data reported by Variety. The whole market took $18.6m, so the horror film accounted for about 30% of all ticket sales.
Key facts
- Resident Evil (Constantin Film/Sony Pictures): RMB37.6m ($5.6m) over 23–25 October; $64.8m in China since its 5 October release.
- Mainland China’s weekend total: $18.6m, per Artisan Gateway via Variety.
- Year to date: $4.7bn, 29.1% behind the same point in 2025.
- Traces of Justice, directed by Chen Sicheng, was second with $4.7m and has taken $92.4m since 1 October.
A $5.6m weekend would not lead the chart in a normal week. It leads now because there is little else: every film in the top five is a holdover, two of them from the summer, and no new release broke in. For sellers pricing Chinese rights on new titles, the year-to-date figure is the harder number: almost three-tenths of last year’s ticket spending has gone missing.
The top five
| Rank | Film (distributor) | Weekend | Weeks | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Resident Evil (Sony/Constantin) | RMB37.6m ($5.6m) | 3 | $64.8m |
| 2 | Traces of Justice (New Classics Pictures) | $4.7m | 4 | $92.4m |
| 3 | Mr. & Mrs. Pardon (Beijing Joy Fun Pictures) | $2.6m | n/a | $55.5m |
| 4 | Once Upon a Time in the Middle East (Dirty Monkeys) | $800,000 | 11 | $355.5m |
| 5 | All Wishes Come True! (Pearl Studio) | $600,000 | 15 | $306.6m |
Source: Artisan Gateway via Variety. Variety gave only the No. 1 figure in renminbi; the rest are its dollar figures, which we have not converted. All Wishes Come True! played a two-day weekend.
How the slide happened
Golden Week lifted the market at the start of the month. Box Office Mojo, which tracks the top-grossing titles, recorded $68.3m for 2–4 October, with Traces of Justice at No. 1. Resident Evil took over the following weekend, when the tally fell to $28.7m, and held on through 16–18 October at $23.3m. Measured against that last figure, this weekend’s $18.6m is a fall of about one-fifth, though the two totals come from different trackers and may not match exactly.
Resident Evil in China and at home
China is now a large part of the film’s business. Its $64.8m there compares with $153.6m in North America after six weekends, according to Deadline. The Chinese total is therefore about 42% of the North American one. The Zach Cregger-directed film opened in China during the Golden Week holiday period.
The local titles behind it have done more in aggregate. Traces of Justice, a crime drama based on real cases from Chen Sicheng, director of the Detective Chinatown series, has $92.4m. Mr. & Mrs. Pardon, a body-swap comedy directed by Shen Chunyang, who also stars with Xiao Shenyang, has $55.5m. The summer hits are still playing: Wen Muye’s Once Upon a Time in the Middle East stands at $355.5m since 11 August, and Pearl Studio’s animation All Wishes Come True! at $306.6m since 18 July.
The last imported title to top the weekend chart before it was the Avengers: Endgame reissue, No. 1 over 25–27 September per Box Office Mojo, part of the run covered in our report on the reissue’s global opening.
What is not known
Variety reported the cumulative figures in dollars only, so the renminbi totals and the exchange rate behind them are not available from that report. Admissions and screen counts were not given. For the wider question of who is buying and releasing films into shrinking markets, see our analysis of who is actually taking films to audiences, and for how Chinese local governments are spending on the next generation of production tools, our report on cities recruiting AI-video companies.
Our reading
The chart rewards whatever is already in cinemas. A film can hold No. 1 for three weeks on falling numbers when distributors leave the post-holiday weeks empty, which is a scheduling choice as much as an audience verdict. For an importer, that gap is an opportunity only if the title is ready to go: the bar for a No. 1 weekend in China is currently under $6m.
The 29.1% year-to-date fall is the figure that will shape deals. Sales agents setting minimum guarantees for China are working from a market whose ticket revenue is down nearly 30% on last year, and the two summer hits that carried it are now taking less than $1m a weekend each. The next evidence is the first new release to open above the current leader and how far it lifts the weekend total.