Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan believes that the success of the movie adaptation of Warcraft: The Beginning will extoll China-made blockbusters.
According to Variety, the adaptation of Blizzard Entertainment's MMORPG set a new record for the biggest debut of an international film released in China. Duncan Jones' Warcraft: The Beginning, which only gained $24.4 million in the United States on its opening week, amassed $156 million at the Chinese box office in first five days.
Such results are scaring Hollywood executives, Chan said at the kickoff event of his namesake Jackie Chan Action Movie Week at the Shanghai film festival this past weekend.
"Warcraft made 600 million yuan in two days. This has scared the Americans. If we can make a movie that earns 10 billion, then people from all over the world who study film will learn Chinese, instead of us learning English," he said.
Last year, China's annual box office earned $6.78 billion, and it is poised to surpass the North American box office, which earned $11 billion last year, as the biggest movie market in the world soon, according to Hollywood Reporter.
The Hollywood Reporter suggested that if China's movie market grows steadily at an average rate of 30 percent a year, then it is possible for the country to produce a $1.5 billion film over the next five or 10 years.
"It is you, not us, who makes China powerful," Chan said to the crowd. "So, thank you all - we hope the Chinese film industry gets even more powerful."
