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A poster for the Chinese comedy film "Detective Chinatown 3" is seen at a movie theater in Yichang City, central China's Hubei Province, February 10, 2021. /CFP
Chinese mainland saw its total box office (including pre-sales) exceeding 1.6 billion yuan ($250 million) on the Chinese Lunar New Year, the second day of the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, data from the country's ticketing platform Maoyan showed as of Friday afternoon, breaking the record of daily box office set during the Spring Festival in 2019, which took in 1.458 billion yuan in total.
Altogether seven films, all domestically made, premiered on Friday as the country ushered in the Year of the Ox. Chinese comedy film "Detective Chinatown 3" made it to the top of the box office chart, raking in 968 million yuan (about $150 million).
The highly anticipated film from Wanda Pictures took up two-thirds of the total earnings of the market. It was originally set to be released during the same holiday a year ago but waspostponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A screenshot of the daily box office in Chinese mainland on February 12, 2021, the Chinese Lunar New Year. /Maoyan
Time travel comedy "Hi, Mom" took the second spot garnering 263 million yuan, followed by fantasy thriller "A Writer's Odyssey," animated film "Boonie Bears: The Wild Life" and mobile game-turned-fantasy film "The Yinyang Master," according to Maoyan.
The Spring Festival is one of the peak seasons for movie ticket sales in the country. China's box office continued to see fast growth in 2021 after scoring a record high for New Year's Day earnings. The total box office revenue this year exceeded 5.4 billion yuan (about $840 million) as of Friday, as data from Maoyan shows.
(With input from Xinhua)
