Would You Pick A Terminator’s Pocket? Because China Would.

“It is acceptable for you to steal my wallet because I have that new Discover card that I can freeze from my smart phone. Ha ha stupid pickpocket. Oh, and I am also going to kill your entire family.”

The growing importance of global box office receipts for Hollywood films can have some interesting ramifications when you face a market as tightly controlled by the government as China.  We’ve already discussed how Terminator: Genysis is now outperforming the Star Trek reboot thanks to huge numbers overseas in general and China in particular.  It turns out the numbers might be even better than reported thanks to some Chinese shenanigans and might make the sixth Terminator film even more likely.  Find out why after the break.

Terminator: Genysis was a dud in the US, grossing only $89 million as of Labor Day weekend.  But internationally, the fifth Terminator film has grossed over $346 million for a global gross of over $435 million.  This makes Genysis the 10th highest grossing film of 2015 globally even though it doesn’t even crack the top 20 in the US.  Oh, and Tomorrowland is currently sitting at 20 for the US–that’s how poorly Genysis has done here.

Those huge international numbers are mostly thanks to China which has contributed over $110 million to Genysis‘ take.  But those numbers could be even higher according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Last week, the movie The Hundred Regiments Offensive opened in China and crushed the box office.  Producers of the film say it is due to the film coming out on the 70th anniversary of Japan being defeated by China and everyone else at the end of World War II.  Some theater chains say it also helped that the filmmakers allowed theaters to keep 100% of the ticket sales for the movie on opening weekend rather than splitting the receipts with the distributor.

Other movie producers say it’s because Regiments cheated.  They point to interesting numbers like how Terminator had 250,000 showings while Regiments was shown less than 100,000 times, yet somehow the WWII drama outgrossed time-travelling robots $39.4 million to $26.7 million.  All told, some analysts believe as much as $11 million of Genysis‘ money was…rerouted to Regiments total.  If that’s true, it’s unlikely the money will be recovered but does make an even stronger case for the next Terminator movie to be made.  The only question is whether the movie even comes out in the United States.  And how much of an impactgames like this will have in how Hollywood views the increasingly important Chinese box office.

“That’s right Ahmerica…I’m freezing you out!”