China’s box office has slipped into its fall lull, and the leaderboard is no longer the real story. A horror reboot held the top spot for a third straight weekend, but the market behind it is tracking well behind last year.
Resident Evil’s third weekend
Constantin Film and Sony Pictures’ Resident Evil earned RMB37.6 million ($5.6 million) over the Oct. 23–25 frame, according to Artisan Gateway. Since Oct. 5, the film has collected $64.8 million.
Traces of Justice, New Classics Pictures’ crime procedural directed by Chen Sicheng, stayed second with $4.7 million in its fourth weekend and now has $92.4 million in total. Beijing Joy Fun Pictures’ body-swap comedy Mr. & Mrs. Pardon was third with $2.6 million and a cume of $55.5 million.
Holdovers are doing the work
- Resident Evil — $5.6M weekend, $64.8M cume
- Traces of Justice — $4.7M weekend, $92.4M cume
- Mr. & Mrs. Pardon — $2.6M weekend, $55.5M cume
- Once Upon a Time in the Middle East — $800K weekend, $355.5M cume
- All Wishes Come True! — $600K weekend, $306.6M cume
The bottom two titles make the supply problem clear: an eleventh-weekend war comedy-drama and a fifteenth-weekend animated family film are still holding places in the top five. That is a chart built on holdovers, not fresh wide releases.
The real number is 29.1%
Mainland China’s overall weekend gross reached $18.6 million, a muted post-holiday session. Year-to-date, the market stands at $4.7 billion, which trails the same period in 2025 by 29.1%.
For media planners and entertainment marketers, that gap matters more than the weekend ranking. One soft October frame can be seasonal. A near-one-third shortfall across the calendar is harder to dismiss, and it changes the baseline for release forecasts and Asia-Pacific marketing budgets.
China matters because it can swing the profitability of large-scale releases. A 29.1% gap means the same release calendar may not recover through holdovers alone, especially when the top five are aging titles rather than new openers.
What to watch next
Treat $4.7 billion and the 29.1% deficit as the current planning baseline. If the schedule stays light on new wide titles, expect the gap to persist. If fresh local or imported films arrive, the test is whether they can narrow the year-to-date comparison before the year-end corridor.
Source: Variety
