Uncharted, the recent Hollywood film featuring actors Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Sophia Taylor Ali, Tati Gabrielle, and Antonio Banderas, will release in China on March 14.
The Ruben Fleischer-directorial is based on the popular PlayStation game series Naughty Dog, that revolves around a treasure hunter named Nathan Drake and his mentor Victor Sullivan. While Holland essays the role of Drake, Wahlberg plays Sullivan.
Uncharted is one of the few Hollywood films to secure a release in China at a time when the country seems to have drastically cut back on providing clearance for films from the US.
Notably, Holland’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, the biggest film of 2021, has still not secured a release in the country despite reports of a Chinese trailer. In the past, Marvel films like Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Eternals also failed to get a release in China.
On the other hand, movies like Disney’s Jungle Cruise, Warner Bros’ Dune, Universal Pictures’ Fast and Furious 9, and Metro-Goldwyn Mayer’s No Time to Die, which did manage to get clearance, hardly made a dent at the Chinese box office. For instance, while Dune garnered $21 million in its opening weekend in the country, Dwayne Johnson’s Jungle Cruise could only make $2 million.
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In comparison, the Chinese propaganda film The Battle at Lake Changjin, that released in China on October 1, collected over $900 million at the domestic box office even with no releases outside the country. And the Chinese New Year (February 1) saw the release of the sequel to The Battle at Lake Changjin, Water Gate Bridge, which is currently the highest-grossing film of 2022 worldwide. While the data around its box office collections is contentious due to varying numbers, the film has garnered somewhere between $480 million and $540 million.
Meanwhile, a few other Hollywood films, aside from Uncharted, have also managed to nab release dates in China. These include Death on the Nile (February 19), A Rainy Day in New York (February 25), and The Batman (March 18).