China's weekly box office tops 5b yuan for second time

BEIJING - China's box office revenue during the past seven-day period ending on Sunday hit 5.5 billion yuan ($851 million), marking a second time that the market's weekly total has ever crossed the 5-billion-yuan mark.

The first such achievement was made in 2019 when the market's total earnings from Feb 4 to 10, 2019 topped 5.9 billion yuan, with The Wandering Earth, a cinematic adaptation of Liu Cixin's sci-fi novel of the same name, contributing one third.

Topping the box office chart from Feb 15 to 21, 2021 was Hi, Mom, a maiden directorial project by comedian and actress Jia Ling, which grossed more than 2.9 billion yuan, or nearly 54 percent of the total, according to the China Movie Data Information Network.

Detective Chinatown 3, the latest installment in China's well-received Detective Chinatown comedy film franchise, was placed second with a revenue of 1.4 billion yuan.

The outstanding performance of the two films since their release on the Spring Festival, which was celebrated on Feb 12 this year and marked the Chinese Lunar New Year, drove China's February box office to quickly surpass 10 billion yuan.

Sunday also saw Hi, Mom overtake Detective Chinatown 3 to become the highest grossing film in China this year, with both scoring more than 4 billion yuan so far.