Shanghai Fortress lost its ¥360M budget to a ¥121M box office — and an apology

Shanghai Fortress, adapted from the novel by Jiangnan, was meant to be China's second big sci-fi film after The Wandering Earth. Its lead producer, Huashi Entertainment (华视娱乐), prepared the project for five years and invested 360 million yuan; the company's own 30 percent share alone was 108 million yuan, according to National Business Daily.

It opened on August 9, 2019 with 74 million yuan on its first day, then collapsed. Douban users gave it 3.4 out of 10, with nearly 60 percent of ratings one star, and word of mouth was so bad that by August 11 the cumulative box office had only just passed 100 million yuan.

On the morning of August 11, director Teng Huatao apologized on Weibo, responding to the viral line that 'The Wandering Earth opened a door for Chinese sci-fi, and Shanghai Fortress closed it'. The film's final China box office was 121 million yuan, per Maoyan — about a third of its 360 million yuan budget.

The failure showed that a hit genre does not carry a weak film: the audience that had rewarded The Wandering Earth punished its imitator, and China's first wave of sci-fi blockbusters got its cautionary tale.