When the patriotic Chinese war movie The Hundred Regiments Offensive outperformed Hollywood blockbuster Terminator: Genisys in the world’s most populous nation, most observers considered the feat just another example of the growing strength of locally produced films. But according to the Hollywood Reporter, evidence has emerged to suggest that Communist party officials ordered cinemas to produce bogus box-office data for the nationalist epic, then hailed its success as the result of a spontaneous outburst of patriotism inspired by the recent 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in the second world war.

The US trade bible cites an anonymous, widely circulated essay titled Entertainment Capitalism, which alleges that cinemas screening The Hundred Regiments Offensive were offered up to 100% of revenues received for the film, tax free, provided they reported hitting specific box-office targets. Staff allegedly worked the scam by issuing cinemagoers with tickets for the Chinese-made film even when they had paid to see other movies, with the title The Hundred Regiments Offensive crossed out and replaced with handwritten details of Terminator, or other films. The revenue was then logged for the government-backed war epic. Some cinemagoers have posted videos of the fraudulent process on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

It is not only in Hollywood that the issue has gone down poorly. The heads of two of China’s largest independent film companies took to social media this week to suggest that The Hundred Regiments Offensive “stole” box office from their own Chinese-made films.



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”Where’s all the box office gone? Please keep those dirty hands away!” posted Wang Zhonglei, president of studio Huayi Brothers, whose romantic drama Tale of Three Cities appeared to suffer after opening on the same day as The Hundred Regiments Offensive.

Bona Film Group CEO Yu Dong, whose detective-themed thriller The Dead End also suffered in comparison with the homegrown blockbuster, wrote on WeChat: “We never steal others’ box office, so please don’t steal ours.” His post was accompanied by a mock poster for The Dead End inviting followers to whistleblow examples of box-office fraud at their local cinemas.

The Hundred Regiments Offensive ultimately came out well ahead of Terminator: Genisys for the week of 31 August to 6 September in China, according to official figures, taking $39.40m (£25.6m) compared to the Hollywood movie’s $26.67m. But experts say the apparent triumph is spurious since the Chinese film had 99,728 screenings against 250,435 for Alan Taylor’s sci-fi sequel. So far, there has been no official response from the Chinese government.

The Hollywood Reporter suggests Paramount Studios, which released Terminator: Genisys, may have lost as much as $11m in revenues due to state tinkering. But that may ultimately prove a small price to pay for access to the world’s second-largest box office: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to his iconic role as the T-800 cyborg has posted a huge $111.92m total in China, almost singlehandedly pushing the film into the black after it disappointed in North America. And studios would be unlikely to kick up much of a fuss, since the state controls the annual quota of 34 foreign films given permission to screen in China.

