MUMBAI: Jackie Chan‘s Chinese Zodiac is being readied to release in North America in either spring or summer next year, according to Ramy Choi, director of distribution and acquisition of the Hong Kong actor‘s company, Jackie & JJ International Limited. It will release in a few hundred screens.
The film, that revolves around a Chan-led team hunting down Chinese national treasures auctioned off to international speculators, will also be released in Europe at the same time, Choi observed.
The film, which also stars Korean actor Kwon Sang-woo and young Chinese actors Zhang Lanxin and Liao Fan as the relic-hunters and Oliver Platt as a villainous tycoon, already released in Chinese-speaking territories and also major Southeast Asian markets on 20 December.
Choi said Chinese Zodiac topped box-office listings on mainland China (where the film‘s co-producers, Huayi Brothers, are distributing the film) on its opening day with earnings of 43.5 million yuan (US$7 million).
She revealed the film‘s first-day gross also topped charts in Singapore (handled by Clover Films and Golden Village), Malaysia (Golden Screen Cinemas) and Thailand (Sahamongkolfilm International).
The one territory which Chinese Zodiac failed to come out on top is Hong Kong where the film collected only HK$0.5 million (US$64,516), trailing behind both The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part Two (HK$2.2 million; US$283,870) and Wreck-it-Ralph (HKS1.7 million; US$219,355).