New "Fantastic Beasts" movie scores 27 mln dollars at Chinese box office

A still of 'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald'. The film is set for release in China on Nov 16, 2018. [Photo provided to China Plus]

The Warner Bros. much-anticipated "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" has pocketed more than 190 million yuan (27.4 million U.S. dollars) at the box office since hitting Chinese screens on Friday.

The movie took in about 80 million yuan at box office on its first day in Chinese theaters, according to latest statistics released by Maoyan, a major Chinese film database and ticketing platform.

Written by J.K. Rowling and starring Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston and Johnny Depp, the film is about Albus Dumbledore working with his former student Newt Scamander to thwart the divisive wizard leader Gellert Grindelwald.

It is the second in a spinoff movie series that started with "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" in 2016, which took in 814 million U.S. dollars at the global box office.

Rated 7.8 by viewers on Maoyan, the film's box office sales are expected to reach 564 million yuan.