BEIJING, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese mainland's total box office during this summer hit a new record high of 17.65 billion yuan (about 2.47 billion U.S. dollars), data from the China Movie Data Information Network shows.

In August alone, the film market grossed more than 7.77 billion yuan, up 13.71 percent year on year, with 219 million tickets sold, according to a China Film News report.

This August was also the first month in China's film history that all daily box office totals exceeded 100 million yuan, said the report.

"NE ZHA" A DARK HORSE

About 130 Chinese and overseas films hit the Chinese mainland big screens during the past three months, of which Chinese animated film "Ne Zha" took the lead with a total box office of 4.68 billion yuan by Aug. 31.

The smash hit pocketed more than 1 billion yuan in less than five days since its release on July 26. By Aug. 31, it has risen to second place on the all-time Chinese mainland film rankings, replacing the sci-fi blockbuster "The Wandering Earth" that closed at 4.66 billion yuan.

Leading the single-day box office for 28 consecutive days, "Ne Zha" has earned a score of 8.8 out of 10 on China's leading film rating platform Douban.

It helped ignite the domestic film market where imported films have won the upper hand since March and contributed about 1.14 billion yuan to the July market.

OVERSEAS ANIMATED FILMS OUTSHINED

Overseas animated films were outperformed, such as the new live action-style remake of "The Lion King," and "Toy Story 4," which raked in about 830 million yuan and 200 million yuan, respectively, by the end of August.

"Compared with some Hollywood productions, Chinese moviegoers now prefer films with more complicated storylines," said Dong Wenxin, manager of a movie theater in Jinan City, east China's Shandong Province.

With the rapid development of Chinese productions, Hollywood and Japanese animations no longer dominated the Chinese mainland animated film market. More and more domestic animations have won wide acclaim, such as "Monkey King: Hero is Back" and "White Snake" before "Ne Zha."

Amid hot competition, high-quality films can withstand market scrutiny. Good timing and star casts are important, but all in all, quality determines the final performance of a film, another cinema manager Xie Shiming said.

As of Aug. 31, the Chinese mainland box office of 2019 totaled 44.66 billion yuan, of which domestic films contributed nearly 26 billion yuan. Enditem

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