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Warcraft Bigger Than Star Wars In China

Despite failing to draw big crowds in the west, ‘Warcraft: The Beginning’ seems to have found its audience in China where it’s taken an astonishing $145 million (£100m) in its opening weekend.

That’s more in four days than ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ made in China during its ENTIRE run.

JJ Abrams’ film grossed $125m (£88m) over there but it faced an uphill battle with Chinese audiences from the start.

A concentrated PR effort was mounted by the Disney to entice fans (including a stunt that saw hundreds of Stormtroopers marching on the Great Wall - below) but it struggled to make an impact in the country where the original ‘77-’83 trilogy never received a theatrical release.

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‘Warcraft’, on the other hand, is still a hugely popular video game series in China hence the huge box office returns for Universal.

Elsewhere in the world, Duncan Jones’ video game adaptation is struggling, taking a disappointing $24m (£17m) in the States in its opening weekend.

Its current global box office haul stands at $286,100,000 (£200m) against a reported budget of $160m (£112m), so there’s a long way to go before we see if ‘The Beginning’ is an apt title for the film, or whether it’s actually “The End” of the franchise.

HT: The Playlist

Watch our interview with the cast of ‘Warcraft: The Beginning’ (in cinemas now) below…

Image credits: UniversalPA/Rex/Disney