China's box office hits record high during Spring Festival holiday

China's box office sales totaled more than 5.72 billion yuan (901 million U.S. dollars) during the week-long Spring Festival holiday, breaking the previous sales record for the period.

"Detective Chinatown 2" releases on the first day of Spring Festival. [Photo: mtime]

The figure represented a growth of 67 percent over the same period last year.

On Feb. 16, the second day of the Spring Festival holiday, box office earnings totaled over 1.25 billion yuan, breaking the global single-day record in a single market.

Domestic film "Detective Chinatown 2" led the Chinese film market by the end of the holiday, earning 1.89 billion yuan, while second place went to "Monster Hunt 2," which took over 1.7 billion yuan.

The top two films were also box office hits in overseas movie markets.

"Detective Chinatown 2" was released Friday in 41 cities in Britain, Germany, Austria, Australia and New Zealand.

The movie earned over 83,000 U.S. dollars during the first weekend in Britain, and it earned more than 156,000 U.S. dollars in Australia.

The box office revenue of China, the world's second-largest film market, rose nearly 13.5 percent in 2017 to more than 55.9 billion yuan.

The overseas box office and sales revenue from Chinese movies exceeded 4.2 billion yuan in 2017, up 11 percent year on year.