Hollywood's second chance

The first Hollywood movie to be "saved" by the Chinese market is widely recognized as the sci-fi film Pacific Rim.

The movie suffered a 52-percent box office slump in North America in its second week in July 2013. Surprisingly, it had something of a "miracle" comeback in China, dominating the box office for three weeks and grossing 600 million yuan, making China the film's largest overseas market.

The 2014 sci-fi blockbuster Transformers: Age of Extinction, or Transformers 4 also enjoyed success in the Chinese market. Although it was given the worst picture award at the 35th Golden Raspberry Awards, the negative feedback did not stop it from becoming the second highest-grossing film in the history of Chinese cinema, making nearly 2 billion yuan.

Many Chinese movie fans complain that the "upside-down" success of these films is because they only get a limited choice of good foreign movies. This is because China only allows 34 foreign titles to have a cinematic release each year. Critics predict the trend of Hollywood flops finding a second life in China may be short-lived.

"China's movie market is expanding too fast. The major moviegoers in third-and fourth-tier cities don't really care if the movie tells a good story. They will take out their wallets just to admire the visual effects and spectacular scenarios," says Zuo Heng, deputy director of cinema studies at China Film Archives.

He adds that the skepticism over the popularity of foreign box office bombs will "wake up" some moviegoers and raise their appetite for good stories.