China's box office hits 5b yuan since reopening of theaters

BEIJING -- China's box-office revenue has hit 5 billion yuan ($733 million) by Monday since theaters reopened on July 20 following months of closure due to COVID-19.

Epic war drama "The Eight Hundred," formally released on Aug 21, contributed more than half of the total, grossing over 2.6 billion yuan as of Monday, data compiled by Maoyan, a movie-ticketing and film data platform, showed.

The second biggest contributor was heart-warming Chinese romance film "Love You Forever," which generated 494 million yuan at the box office.

Sci-fi action production "Tenet" by Christopher Nolan, which was released on Sept. 4, came in third with 356 million yuan in collections.

Released on Aug 25 for the Chinese Qixi Festival that is akin to Valentine's Day, "Love You Forever" helped drive China's box-office total for that day to over 520 million yuan, a record high single-day figure this year.