China's first sci-fi film yields huge investment return

The Wandering Earth, China's first-ever "hardcore" sci-fi film, has not only excited Chinese movie-goers but also satisfied its producers with substantial revenues in return, The Paper reported.

Launched on Feb.5 which was the very first day of China's lunar new Year of the Pig, the film had registered over 2 billion yuan (294.65 million U.S. dollars) in box office returns over the week-long Spring Festival holiday ending on Feb.10.

Maoyan, a popular online film ticket seller, estimates that the overall ticket revenue generated by the film will exceed 5.1 billion yuan (751.67 million U.S. dollars) at last.

Such a superb box office performance is also something the film's producers are eager to see. Announcements of several A-share listed producers reveals that they have also derived remarkable returns from the film.

China Film (600977), one of the film's major producers, forecast Monday night that it would receive somewhere between 95 million yuan (14 million U.S. dollars) and 105 million yuan (15.48 million U.S. dollars) in revenue by the end of Feb.10, which would be roughly equivalent to 9 percent of the company's total revenue for 2017. With such a successful investment, the company's stock price surged over 5 percent at a time during the first trading day of this lunar new year on Feb.11.

Another big winner emerging from this blockbuster film is Beijing Jingxi Culture and Tourism (000802), which also announced Monday night that it was expected to generate somewhere between 73 million yuan (10.76 million U.S dollars) and 83 million (12.23 million U.S. dollars) in revenue as of the end of Feb.10.

The company's upbeat revenue forecast was also shared with its shareholders, who spurred a 10 percent increase, the maximum single-day increase allowed under the Chinese law, in its share price at the beginning of Feb.11.

It is worth noting that The Wandering Earth only marks the third major success in the company's film investment experience over the past three years. The company also profited substantially from its investments in two other hit films, namely, Wolf Warriors II and Dying to Survive, which were launched in 2017 and 2018, respectively.