{"id":509236,"date":"2026-03-02T10:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/509236\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T10:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:09:08","slug":"han-hans-pegasus-3-climbs-to-530m-at-chinas-box-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/509236\/","title":{"rendered":"Han Han’s Pegasus 3 Climbs to $530M at China’s Box Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPegasus 3<\/a> kept its grip on the China<\/a> box office<\/a> 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\u2013March 1. The racing comedy\u2019s healthy hold solidifies its status as the clear engine of the market so far this year \u2014 but the rest of the field is running on fumes relative to past Chinese New Year tentpoles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTotal weekend ticket sales came to just $107.9 million, and China\u2019s 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\u2019s film sector from a deepening malaise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tPegasus 3 is directed by Han Han<\/a>, a high-school dropout who has become one of China\u2019s most consistent cultural creators \u2014 against the odds. In the mid-2000s, while still in his early twenties, Han became one of the country\u2019s 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 \u2014\u00a0background that would eventually inform his Pegasus franchise \u2014 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) in 2017, followed by the start of the Pegasus franchise in 2019 ($255 million). A 2022 detour, The Four Seas, was poorly received and underperformed, but Han bounced back with Pegasus 2 ($464 million) during the 2024 holiday. With the third installment now on track to finish north of $600 million, Han has built one of the most consistent franchises in Chinese cinema \u2014 a singular second act for a figure who came to fame by picking fights with bureaucrats on the internet during a much more liberal era of recent Chinese history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most notable development in China\u2019s box office rankings this past weekend was the shuffling of the two titles directly behind Pegasus 3. Yuen Woo-ping\u2019s martial arts epic Blades of the Guardians continued to show resilient legs, earning $20.3 million (RMB 144.4 million) for the weekend and climbing to $158.2 million (RMB 1.12 billion) cumulatively \u2014 enough to surpass Zhang Yimou\u2019s Scare Out, which slowed to $14.5 million (RMB 102.6 million) for the frame, bringing its total to $155.4 million (RMB 1.1 billion). Both titles have now crossed the locally significant RMB 1 billion mark \u2014 always a feat, but a far cry from the collective breakout performances that usually characterized Lunar New Year releases.<\/p>\n

\n\tBlades of the Guardians, adapted from the popular manhua Biao Ren, features a star-laden ensemble led by Wu Jing, Nicholas Tse, Yu Shi, Tony Leung Ka-fai and Jet Li. The wuxia spectacle is produced by Woo Ping Pictures, Beijing Dengfeng International<\/a> Culture Communications Company, Damai Entertainment, China Film Group, Huaxia Film and others. Its strong word-of-mouth appears to be sustaining audience interest even as the post-holiday corridor begins to thin.<\/p>\n

\n\tZhang Yimou\u2019s Scare Out, a contemporary espionage thriller produced by Damai Entertainment with Alibaba Pictures handling distribution, stars Jackson Yee and Zhu Yilong in a story centered on a national-security investigation triggered by the leak of sensitive military intelligence.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fourth position, Fantawild Animation\u2019s Boonie Bears: The Hidden Protector added $13.5 million (RMB 95.5 million) over the weekend, lifting its cumulative gross to $132.1 million (RMB 938 million). The latest installment of the dependable family franchise, directed by Lin Huida, follows Briar, Bramble and their companion Vick as they encounter Nian, the mythical beast of Lunar New Year legend, whose arrival draws them into a fantastical city of supernatural forces.<\/p>\n

\n\tRounding out the top five was Hong Kong comedy Night King, directed by Jack Ng and distributed by Edko Films, which climbed up the rankings in its second weekend to bump Jackie Chan\u2019s Panda Plan 2 out of the top five. The film earned $4.8 million (RMB 34.1 million) for the weekend for a $19.7 million (RMB 140 million) cume. Starring Dayo Wong and Sammi Cheng in their first screen pairing in over a decade, the film is set in a once-glamorous Tsim Sha Tsui nightclub fighting to avoid closure. Night King has been a massive hit at home in Hong Kong, where it broke multiple local records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWith China\u2019s typical holiday blackout on film imports winding down, Hollywood will be back in the market later this week with the launch of Maggie Gyllenhaal\u2019s Frankenstein spinoff The Bride! on March 6 and Chris Hemsworth\u2019s heist thriller Crime 101 on March 7. Other titles already set for China release include Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi\u2019s Wuthering Heights on March 13, Sony Animation\u2019s GOAT on March 14 and Marty Supreme on March 20. MGM\u2019s Project Hail Mary and Pixar\u2019s Hoppers \u2014 similar in style and tone to last year\u2019s highest-grossing import Zootopia 2 \u2014 are also being positioned as promising spring tentpoles in China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pegasus 3 kept its grip on the China box office this past weekend, adding $49.5 million (RMB 351.3…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6471,49,48,95,75,202632,77,337,196102],"class_list":{"0":"post-509236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-box-office","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-han-han","14":"tag-international","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-pegasus-3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}