BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The tear-jerker film "Hi, Mom" on Saturday overtook the 2019 sci-fi blockbuster "The Wandering Earth" to become the third highest-grossing film ever screened in China.
Comedy actress Jia Ling's maiden directorial project saw its cumulative ticket sales hit 4.69 billion yuan (723 million U.S. dollars) as of Saturday afternoon, surpassing that of "The Wandering Earth," a cinematic adaptation of Liu Cixin's novel of the same name.
Earlier in the day, "Detective Chinatown 3," the latest installment in Wanda Pictures' well-received "Detective Chinatown" comedy film franchise, has ranked fifth on the all-time ticket sales chart covering all films ever screened in China, after surpassing 4.25 billion yuan of revenue netted by the 2019 blockbuster "Avengers: Endgame."
The 2017 action-adventure film "Wolf Warrior 2" and the 2019 animated fantasy "Ne Zha" are currently topping the chart with total revenue of 5.69 billion yuan and 5.03 billion yuan, respectively, per data compiled by box office tracker Maoyan.
"Hi, Mom" and "Detective Chinatown 3" are the top earners among a total of seven domestic titles released during the Chinese holiday of Spring Festival, or Lunar New Year.
Driven by the two films' outstanding market performance, China's February box office sales, currently at 11.9 billion yuan, have overtaken sales in the same month of 2019, marking the highest-grossing month the country has ever seen.
Maoyan projected that "Hi, Mom" will complete its run with total sales of 5.3 billion yuan.