BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Advance box office sales for China's upcoming weeklong Spring Festival holiday hit 600 million yuan (93 million U.S. dollars) by Tuesday morning.
As the first such moviegoing period following the COVID-19 outbreak, the holiday starting Feb. 11 is of great importance to China's film industry and will be seen as a further mark of recovery in the country's box office market, one of the world's largest.
Topping the bookings chart was "Detective Chinatown 3," the latest installment in Wanda Pictures' well-received "Detective Chinatown" comedy film franchise.
Its advance ticket sales for the holiday have exceeded 400 million yuan, including 300 million yuan for its opening day alone, according to data compiled by film data and e-ticketing platform Maoyan.
A sequel to the 2018 comedy hit "Detective Chinatown 2," which generated nearly 3.4 billion yuan at China's box office, "Detective Chinatown 3" will join six other domestic titles to screen in China on Spring Festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 12 this year.
The other six films opening on the same day are time travel comedy "Hi, Mom," fantasy thriller "A Writer's Odyssey," mobile game turned fantasy film "The Yinyang Master," comedy-drama "Endgame," animated fantasy "New Gods: Nezha Reborn," and "Boonie Bears: The Wild Life," which is the latest installment in the domestic animated comedy franchise.
"Hi, Mom" ranked second on the advance holiday sales chart compiled by Maoyan, with bookings totaling around 90 million yuan as of Tuesday morning.
China's box office continues to see robust growth in 2021 after scoring record-high earnings on New Year's Day. The total box office revenue so far in 2021 has exceeded 3.6 billion yuan. Enditem
A single purchase
