China's First $100M Film Pulled From Cinemas After Disastrous Opening Weekend

Wonder what the punishment for "mega flop" is in China?

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinas-first-100m-film-pulled-cinemas-disastrous-opening-weekend-1127224

In the long lead-up to its release, Chinese fantasy epic Asura was promoted as China's most expensive film ever made, with a production budget of over $110 million (750 million yuan). So perhaps it's unsurprising that the film's producers, which include Jack Ma's Alibaba Pictures, decided to take desperate action after the movie opened to just $7.1 million over the weekend.

Late Sunday evening in Beijing, Asura's official social media accounts posted a simple statement saying that the film would be pulled from cinemas as of 10 p.m. local time. After landing in theaters with limited fanfare, China's priciest picture ever would vanish from the scene entirely.

Adding a layer of intrigue to the saga, Asura's backers are now alleging sabotage.

Asura's producers are now alleging that they were targeted by a particularly aggressive "water army" attack. In a second social media post, they say they discovered a large number of 1/10 reviews for Asura posted to Maoyan by suspicious accounts immediately after the film's release. Describing the episode as "the shame of the industry," they say a sizable discrepancy soon emerged between Asura's early average scores on Maoyan (4.9/10) and on Alibaba's Tiao Piao Piao (8.4/10). The statement concludes with a series of pointed statements directed at Maoyan, questioning the integrity of the platform's rating system and asking when the company will take action to address such problems. The post also ends with some disparaging words for the shadowy, unknown perpetrators of the campaign, saying that "whoever is behind this is dirty, stupid and ridiculous."