The Rock’s new film Skyscraper bombs in the US but opens big in China

Film produced by Legendary, owned by China’s Wanda

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The Rock’s new film Skyscraper bombs in the US but opens big in China

Josh Ye

Published: 5:45pm, 23 Jul 2018Updated: 8:33am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Dwayne Johnson has saved the world time and time again in a variety of films. But this time The Rock needed help: His latest film was saved by moviegoers in China.

Skyscraper raked in US$48 million this weekend in China… which is more than the US$46m it’s made in 10 days in the United States.

Skyscraper’s lopsided success in China is not exactly unexpected. It’s from a Chinese-owned Hollywood production company, Wanda’s Legendary Entertainment. And it does seem to tick a few China-centric boxes that make it seem like they were trying to create a film specifically for the country:

“Hmmm how about… what if we get The Rock to jump out of a futuristic skyscraper in Hong Kong, fighting a baddie played by the model wife of the biggest Mandarin pop star.”

And yup, that is exactly what Skyscraper is about: An American flexes his muscles and China shows off its modernity. Everybody wins! Well, except for whoever thought The Rock could make this jump:

This isn’t the first time Legendary made a film with a very different reception in China and the US. Remember the Great Wall in 2016, where Matt Damon acts as a Western savior for ancient China? That movie did almost five times better in China than in North America.