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Actor, director and screenwriter Chen Sicheng is one of the giants of contemporary Chinese cinema.

His three “Detective Chinatown” films have earned more than $1.2 billion of box office revenue, and Chen is the producing force behind another major franchise, “Sheep Without a Shepherd,” adapted from the Indian “Drishyam” films.

“Lost in the Stars,” Chen’s latest effort, this time as producer and screenwriter, is another megahit. Co-directed by Cui Rui and Liu Xiang, “Lost in the Stars” has grossed $430 million (RMB3.08 billion) in China – enough to make it the seventh-biggest film worldwide this year and the 14th biggest film of all time in China – all in the span of just 17 days.

The movie is a mystery drama, adapted from the ’90s Russian film “A Trap for the Lonely Man,” which itself was adapted from a Robert Thomas stage play. It sees a woman disappear while on holiday with her husband...

A couple visit an island to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary. The wife’s disappearance sparks a dizzying display of double takes and plot pivots

This mystery drama twist-a-thon from China was a huge hit on home turf recently (far outperforming the latest Indiana Jones feature) and has been picked up for distribution in the UK and the US. Although the 180-degree plot pivots start to get a little ridiculous by the end, the script zips along with such gleeful mischievousness that the ride is too fun to resist. Intriguingly, it is supposedly based on a 1990 Russian film called A Trap for Lonely Man, which was itself an adaptation of a stage play by French writer Robert Thomas for which Alfred Hitchcock once bought the rights. You can see traces of what Hitch might have liked about it, because it’s all about dopplegangers, femmes fatale and paranoia spoiling what...

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is the latest big Hollywood movie to bomb in China, earning just $2.3 million over its opening weekend. It comes on the heels of “The Flash” earning just $25 million since opening three weekends ago as well as “The Little Mermaid” earning just $3.7 million after a month in theaters.

Like “Solo: A Star Wars Story” in 2018, it would appear that “Indiana Jones 5” was a domestic-skewing IP sell, especially with the brand mostly dormant since “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” in 2008, with a less-than-hoped overseas appeal. None of the previous “Indiana Jones” films played in China, which means there’s no generational nostalgia for the brand or Harrison Ford’s marquee character.

It’s one more costly example of how Chinese audiences are showing a preference for homegrown movies over Hollywood tentpoles, a conundrum for studios that spent the 2010s counting on China as a growth market.

Chinese mystery drama “Lost in the Stars” expanded in its second week on release and gave China its third biggest box office weekend of the year. That local success came as Hollywood tentpole “Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny” failed to land a top five place in the Middle Kingdom on its debut weekend.

“Indiana Jones” earned just $2.4 million in China, according to estimates from local data providers. It played some 25,000 screenings per day on Friday but earned less than $900,000. Exhibitors then slashed the number of sessions by half on Saturday. They further trimmed the number of playdates on Sunday when it slipped to seventh place. Consultancy, Artisan Gateway did not provide confirmed data for “Indiana Jones” in China.

“Lost in the Stars” earned $117 million, according to Artisan Gateway. That was significantly up from its opening weekend of $70.7 million (RMB502 million) a week earlier and enough to make it the...

The top movie at the global box office last weekend was not “The Flash” or “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.” It was China’s latest homegrown blockbuster, “Lost in the Stars,” which earned $70 million from Friday to Sunday, or $98 million over the four-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday weekend in the country. Counting Monday’s $23.3 million gross and $26 million on Tuesday, the mystery romance has $146.5 million thus far. That already puts it above every summer release in China including Hollywood’s “Fast X,” which has earned $138 million in China since its mid-May premiere.

It’s one more example of how Chinese audiences are showing a strong preference for homegrown movies over Hollywood fare, a conundrum for studios that once counted on China as a growth market. With theaters closed for the pandemic and Western streaming services mostly unwelcome in China’s tightly controlled internet market, there’s been little occasion to connect moviegoers with popular franchises,...

Chinese mystery drama “Lost in the Stars” was the top-grossing film on the planet over the latest weekend – despite playing only a single territory.

The film earned $70.7 million (RMB502 million) between Friday and Sunday in mainland China, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That put it far and away ahead of other Chinese new releases and Hollywood’s holdovers “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” and “The Flash.”

With the Dragon Boat Festival holiday occurring on Thursday, the film was given an unusual one-day advance on the normal releasing pattern in China. Including Thursday takings, the film made a total of $98.3 million (RMB968 million).

Data from Comscore shows “Lost in the Stars” handily beating second-placed “Elemental,” which earned $49.8 million between Friday and Sunday ($31.3 million in 40 international markets and $18.5 million in North America).

“Lost in the Stars” is a Chinese adaptation of a 1990 Russian movie “A Trap for the Lonely Man,...

Visit Heptonstall graveyard in West Yorkshire and you can expect to see four things: Happy Valley fans, tourists, pens and coins. The former are there to visit the fictional gravesite of Catherine Cawood’s daughter Becky from the BBC thriller, while the tourists are in the habit of leaving the latter – pens on the grave of American poet Sylvia Plath, and coins on the grave of legendary local figure “King” David Hartley.

“There’s never usually more than 20p on David Hartley’s grave,” says Jennifer Reid, a ballad historian who plays pub landlady Barb in a new BBC drama about the famed Yorkshireman. “But when I visited during filming I knew people from London had been up, because there was about £4.50 on there!”

Coins and the London/Yorkshire wealth divide are fundamental to The Gallows Pole, a three-part historical series from filmmaker Shane Meadows. It’s the real-life story...