"20 Once Again," the Chinese-version remake of a Korean film "Miss Granny," has hit the 10-million box-office milestone for the first time for a Chinese-Korean joint production movie. Unlike the TV drama market in which government regulation is strict about international joint ventures, movie production is relatively free of regulation. Korea's CJ E&M is expected to reap about 6 billion won from the movie as it holds more than a 50-percent stake in the project.
According to CJ E&M on January 27, the ticket sales revenue for the movie for 17 days since its release in 5,500 screens in China on January 8 has been 321.09 million yuan (US$51.39 million), with its admission number reaching 10.2 million as of the end of January 25. This is the highest number of box-office admission among Korean-Chinese joint production movies and 11th highest among all-time romantic comedy movies made available in Chinese movie theaters.
The film that set the previous box-office record for CJ E&M in China was "A Wedding Invitation" (2013), with sales revenue of 193 million yuan ($30.9 million) and 6.1 million moviegoers. At the time, CJ E&M took in a net profit of 6 billion won with the 60-percent stake in the project.
Source: The Korea Economic Daily
