China Box Office: Jason Statham’s A Working Man matches Snow White’s opening weekend earnings on debut day

Jason Statham’s A Working Man surprises at the China box office, earning as much in a single day as Snow White did over its entire opening weekend, signaling strong audience interest.

Written by Seema Sinha , Entertainment Journalist

Published on Mar 29, 2025 | 01:31 PM IST | 19.2K

Picture courtesy: Amazon MGM Studios

With no noise whatsoever, David Ayer’s A Working Man, starring Jason Statham, debuted in China on Friday, March 28, and surprisingly grossed USD 854K. The performance placed it at number two at the Chinese box office, right beneath the animated juggernaut Ne Zha 2, which has held the top spot since its January 29 release. A Working Man’s debut day run is particularly impressive when compared to Disney’s highly anticipated tentpole Snow White, which took the entire opening weekend to earn around the same amount in the region.

A Working Man played across 59K locations on Friday. Playing on the same number of screens, The Beekeeper and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes brought in USD 1.2 million, respectively, while Shazam 2 collected USD 1.3 million. These titles, however, were either highly anticipated or belonged to established franchises.

Audience and ticket buyer scores on both Maoyan and Douban for A Working Man remain under wraps as of now. The movie, however, has USD 140K in presales for today (Saturday) when it expands to 72K screens, plus 13K from Friday.

A Working Man is eyeing a USD 2.5 to 4 million three-day opening in China.

Based on Chuck Dixon’s Levon Cade series, the movie follows a former Royal Marine Commando who now makes a living as the leader of a construction team. He is close with the Garcia family that runs the company and hence feels obliged to help when their teenage daughter is kidnapped by Russian traffickers.

Besides Statham, A Working Man stars David Harbour, Michael Peña, Jason Flemyng, Arianna Rivas, and more.

Sylvester Stallone originally developed Dixon’s work as a television series. The project later evolved into a feature film at the 2023 American Film Market, where Ayer was first announced to direct and Statham to star. Amazon MGM acquired US and select international distribution rights to the film in January 2024. The film was greenlit for development in part due to its potential to spawn sequels, given the number of novels Dixon has written in the series.

Domestically, the film arrived alongside four other releases: Death of a Unicorn, The Woman in the Backyard, The Penguin Lessons, and The Chosen: Last Supper. None of these films is expected to post a double-digit opening number, meaning last weekend’s release, Snow White, will dominate the chart yet again despite its disappointing run.