China Box Office: ‘Pegasus 3’ Climbs to $530 Million But Holiday Market Lags Far Behind 2025

Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Pegasus 3 kept its grip on the China box office this past weekend, adding $49.5 million (RMB 351.3 million) to push its cumulative haul to $529.6 million (RMB 3.76 billion), according to data from Artisan Gateway covering Feb. 27–March 1. The racing comedy’s healthy hold solidifies its status as the clear engine of the market so far this year — but the rest of the field is running on fumes relative to past Chinese New Year tentpoles. Total weekend ticket sales came to just $107.9 million, and China’s cumulative 2026 box office now stands at $1.41 billion, a 55.9 percent decline compared to the same point in 2025. Last year, of course, animated juggernaut Ne Zha 2 was still deep in its historic run, on its way to a $2.2 billion finish that both set global records and single-handedly rescued China’s film sector from a deepening malaise. Related Stories News Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association Supports "Targeted Actions" Against Government Officials in Wake of U.S. Military Operations TV Luke Thompson Is, Admittedly, a Little Relieved to Be Winding Down His 'Bridgerton' Fairytale Pegasus 3 is directed by Han Han , a high-school dropout who has become one of China’s most consistent cultural creators — against the odds. In the mid-2000s, while still in his early twenties, Han became one of the country’s most widely read bloggers, issuing acerbic posts on politics and society that amassed hundreds of millions of hits. Around the same time, he took up rally racing in a serious way — background that would eventually inform his Pegasus franchise — and later parlayed his fame into a feature filmmaking debut with the youth road movie The Continent in 2014. The film earned $100 million, leading to his Lunar New Year comedy Duckweed ($152 million...