Avatar continues to set records in China, grossing 300m yuan in 8 days

Hollywood blockbuster "Avatar" pulled in 309 million yuan ($45 million) nationwide as of Monday, spokesman of the China Film Group Corporation, the movie's distributor in China, said on Wednesday.

Weng Li said it was the first movie in the country to reach the figure within eight days.

The 3D epic earned 56 million yuan at the box office last Saturday alone, surpassing the American adventure movie "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" which took 43 million yuan on its most successful day.

"Avatar" scooped around 33.03 million yuan when it opened on January 4, becoming the most successful film in China in terms of opening day box office sales.

"Its schedule is perfect," Li Xianping, general manager of Beijing Ziguang Cinema, said, "It almost has no competition since few blockbusters have been released recently in the country."

"Novel 3D technology and positive reviews from audiences also have influenced ticket sales," she added.

"Avatar' occupies more than 90 percent of the whole box office," said Wu Hehu, deputy general manager of Shanghai United Circuit, a major distributor in the country.

He said all weekends' IMAX tickets for the month had been sold out at the company's Peace Cinema in Shanghai.

In Beijing, people are lining up from the small hours of the morning outside the China National Film Museum, which has the largest IMAX screen in the country, to buy "Avatar" tickets, Song Lichen, communication officer at the museum told Xinhua.

Weng believed the science fiction epic was on course to hit 500 million yuan in China.

"The film is likely to break the box office record set by '2012'," said Weng in an earlier interview. The disaster film had raked in 460 million yuan in 2009 after it premiered in China on November 13 to become the box office champion in the country.

Since its premiere on December 18, 2009 in North America, James Cameron's new film has taken more than $1.3 billion worldwide, second only to his romance "Titanic" which earned $1.8 billion.