China's summer box office hits 7 billion yuan

China's box office revenue for the summer movie season, covering the period from June 1 to August 31 this year, stood at a little more than 7 billion yuan (about US$1.08 billion) as of Friday.

It is against nearly 18 billion yuan recorded during the three-month period in 2019 before COVID-19 struck, according to data from box office tracker Maoyan.

The top three earners were patriotic film "Chinese Doctors," action hit "Raging Fire," and animated fantasy "White Snake 2: The Tribulation of Green Snake," raking in around 1.32 billion yuan, 1.01 billion yuan, and 549 million yuan as of Friday afternoon, respectively.

Multiple films, including "The Battle at Lake Changjin" – a war epic jointly directed by Chen Kaige, Hark Tsui and Dante Lam – delayed their summer releases due to the recent COVID-19 resurgence, which according to health officials on Friday has now been controlled.