"Ne Zha 2" breaks into Top Three at Australia's weekend box office

SYDNEY, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese animated film "Ne Zha 2" has entered the top three at Australia's weekend box office in its debut, according to data from box office reporting company Numero on Monday.

"Ne Zha 2" took the third spot with 2.35 million Australian dollars (1.50 million U.S. dollars) in the Weekend Total Box Office from Thursday through Sunday, the data showed.

"Captain America: Brave New World" made it to the top spot, earning 5.31 million Australian dollars in its debut. "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy" secured the second position with 4.45 million Australian dollars in opening weekend earnings.

"Ne Zha 2" was screened in 91 cinemas in its opening weekend in Australia, the largest scale for a Chinese film in the local market in nearly two decades, David Duan, associate director of CMC Pictures, which is the distributor for the film's overseas release, told Xinhua.

Currently, in terms of per-screen earnings and occupancy rates, "Ne Zha 2" is outperforming "Captain America: Brave New World," he said.

"Ne Zha 2" is the sequel to the 2019 animated blockbuster "Ne Zha." Both films were inspired by the 16th-century Chinese mythological novel "The Investiture of the Gods."

The Chinese animated blockbuster has surpassed Disney's 2019 "The Lion King" to claim a spot among the 10 highest-grossing films of all time, with global earnings, including presales, exceeding 12.05 billion Chinese yuan (about 1.67 billion U.S. dollars), according to data from Chinese ticketing platform Maoyan as of Monday afternoon.