Star Wars: The Last Jedi hammered at the Chinese box office by rom-com

A local rom-com is battering Star Wars: The Last Jedi at the Chinese box office.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the latest instalment in Disney’s Star Wars saga made $560,000 during a week of midnight previews.

While not a dreadful haul, this compares with a stellar performance from The Ex-File 3: The Return of the Exes, the third and final movie in a series which, coincidentally apes the names of the Star Wars movies (the previous one being suffixed The Backup Strikes Back).

By the end of this coming weekend, the movie is being forecast box office receipts of $6.6 million, compared to The Last Jedi‘s $4 million.

The Last Jedi is trailing significantly behind previous Star Wars movie The Force Awakens too – it made $2.5 million during its first week of previews in China in 2015.

The Ex-File 3 finds three Chinese playboys dumping their girlfriends in order to lead a single life.

However, the tables soon turn with their girlfriends join forces to exact their revenge.

It’s the latest in a series of box office smashes in the Chinese cinema market, which, it’s thought, could surpass the US in the next few years.

The country’s highest-grossing movie of all time, the fiercely nationalistic Wolf Warrior 2, became the sixth biggest release of the year worldwide this year, despite only being released in five countries.

It made a staggering $867 million, $854 million of that coming from the domestic Chinese market alone.

Other Chinese-made movies did huge business at the domestic box office too this year, including the comedy Never Say Die ($339 million), Jackie Chan action comedy Kung Fu Yoga ($270 million), and fantasy movie Journey To The West: The Demons Strike Back ($255 million).

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