China Box Office: 'Planet of the Apes' Narrowly Tops 'Expendables 3'

The Moon Festival holiday was good for attendance

Apes and aging action heroes wrestled for supremacy at the top of the Chinese box office charts last week, with Matt Reeves' Dawn of the Planet of the Apes just beating out Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables 3 for the number one spot.

The latest installment in the Planet of the Apes franchise grossed $20.08 million, according to calculations by the research body Entgroup, bringing its cume to $102.26 million after 17 days.

The movie had 142,097 screenings and 3.36 million admissions.

The weekly figure put it marginally ahead of Lionsgate and Millennium's Expendables 3, which took $20.04 million for a cume of $61.97 million. It has been showing in China for 14 days, and last week it had 161,520 screenings at 3.83 million admissions.

Although it had more screenings and admissions, The Expendable 3’s average ticket price ($5.20) was lower than the average ticket cost for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes ($6).

The week’s box office takings included the Moon Festival holiday, which has become a big cinema-going event.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes now trails only Iron Man 3, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and all-time leader Transformers: Age of Extinction on the list of China’s best-performing movies ever.

In third place was hte local romance But Always, featuring Nicholas Tse and Gao Yuanyuan, which took $16.13 million to bring its total after 10 days to $27.87 million.

In fourth place came Lionsgate’s Divergent, which added another $9.37 million from China to the $250 million the movie has grossed worldwide. The movie has a cume of $9.52 million after seven days in China.

Another Hollywood movie blew in behind that, as New Line and Warner Bros’ Into The Storm notched up $7.62 million in its opening weekend. The movie had 78,190 screenings and 1.5 million admissions.

Behind that was Beauty and the Beast with $1.65 million in its opening weekend, followed by the domestic thriller Inside The Girls, which took $1.08 million, also in its opening weekend.

Tale of the Rally earned another $710,000 for a cume of $1.46 million, Delhi Safari added $640,000 for a gross of $1.27 million, and rounding out the top 10 was DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon 2 which took another $560,000 to bring its cume from 32 days showing to $65.10 million.

Twitter: @cliffordcoonan