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The 4K, 3D reissue of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first installment in the popular Harry Potter franchise, has topped China's box-office charts since it was released on Friday.
The movie nabbed over 94.89 million yuan ($13.56 million) from 16,000 screens at the box office during the weekend, according to China Movie Data Information Network's statistics on Monday. The re-release easily surpassed the 100-million-yuan mark at the box office on Monday. Combined with the 56 million yuan made back in 2002, the film's total gross now exceeds 160 million yuan.
The results came as China's film industry, scarred by the COVID-19 epidemic, is gradually recovering, with more movie theaters allowed to reopen after months-long closure and blockbusters, such as Guan Hu's war epic The Eight Hundred and Christopher Nolan's latest sci-fi action feature film Tenet, set to hit the country's cinemas.
Warner Bros. said the re-release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter book that was published in China in 2000.
The Harry Potter series, written by British novelist J.K. Rowling, along with its movies, fills many Chinese readers' and audience's childhood memories.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone tells the adventure of young Harry Potter, who receives an invitation from a school of magic called Hogwarts, unexpectedly discovers his talent for witchcraft and fights with his friends against the evil and dark forces at the school.
A Harry Potter fan holds a new Chinese version of the book Harry Potter: Film Wizardry, a book recently released in China that explores the stories behind the scenes in the making of the Harry Potter film series, at a special screening in Shanghai, Aug. 15, 2020. [Photo courtesy of DX Movie Viewing Programme]
The film was released in cinemas worldwide in November 2001 and premiered in China in January 2002. It grossed nearly $980 million at the box office worldwide, making it the year's highest-grossing film. But it had no 3D version at that time as the 3D format became popular in 2009 due to the success of James Cameron's Avatar.
It was amazing to see the 3D, 4K version this time. The experience of watching this film again was beyond my expectations. Seeing these young and familiar faces back on the big screen after so many years was truly nostalgic, a fan named Dio commented on his microblog.
Combined with the new earnings from the re-release in China, the 19-year-old movie set a new single-day gross record in the post-COVID-19 era on Saturday and is now just a little over $2 million from becoming the second movie in the franchise to hit the $1 billion mark in global earnings.
As of Monday afternoon, the hashtag for the re-release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone had earned 270 million views on China's microblog platform Sina Weibo.
(CHINA.ORG.CN)
