The 2026 summer box office in China has shown a clear polarization, with Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Girls surpassing 1.9 billion RMB (approximately 1.14 billion MYR) and The Eight Immortals also pulling in a strong 700 million RMB (about 420 million MYR), both delivering impressive results. However, while some celebrate, others are left in distress: amid the dominance of these blockbuster films, as many as six Chinese movies pulled out of release during the same period. Notably, When the Stars Shine, starring Huang Bo and Wu Lei, was urgently withdrawn just 24 hours after its release, leading this summer box office to be dubbed ‘the most chaotic in history.’
This wave of schedule withdrawals stems from a severe tilt in market resources and a “reversal” between word of mouth and screen allocation. Although the sci-fi blockbuster When the Stars Shine scored 58 million RMB (about 35 million MYR) on its first day and the animated film The Three Kingdoms, Part 1: Battle for Luoyang received positive feedback with a score of 8.1 points, top films like Kung Fu Girls and The Eight Immortals monopolized nearly 80% of prime time and IMAX large-screen screenings. As a result, other films’ screening allocations were severely compressed to less than 1%. With most showings relegated to late-night hours and low attendance leading to ongoing financial losses, the only option left was to withdraw to cut their losses. This, coupled with the withdrawal of The Battle of Penghu, the animated film The Rise of the Great Sage, Thai film A Dog’s Journey, Just Kidding, and others, brings the total to six movies retreating from the summer season.
Facing this chaos, film bloggers have voiced their concerns. Blogger “Global Film Center” lamented: “I don’t think it’s just a problem with the films themselves. The top blockbusters occupy the vast majority of screenings, and many well-reviewed small- and mid-size films are shown only late at night—audiences can’t even get tickets if they want to watch them.” They believe that, while pulling out is a helpless move, frequent schedule changes gradually erode the audience’s trust, and viewers inevitably start to doubt the quality of the films. Another entertainment blogger bluntly described this summer movie season as “a chaotic mess,” questioning the schedule maneuvers as “utterly confusing,” noting that Chinese-produced films are repeatedly being pulled while foreign blockbusters seamlessly take their slots. “It’s hard not to suspect that the schedule is deliberately being cleared for overseas films.”
Source: ETtoday Star Cloud