BEIJING, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Disney and Marvel's "Avengers: Endgame" topped Wednesday's box office in the Chinese mainland market, according to China Movie Data Information Network.
The superhero movie grossed more than 523.95 million yuan (about 78.2 million U.S. dollars) on the first day of its debut, far exceeding other movies.
Tian Jirong, a graduate student at Tsinghua University, was among the first to see it.
"As the conclusion to a 22-film journey across 10 years, there was a lot of anticipation for this film," Tian said. "Many go to the theaters not just to watch the movie itself, but also to pay tribute to the conclusion that marks the end of an era for the Marvel Cinematic Universe."
Liu Yuting, another student at Tsinghua University, said the movie met his expectations.
"I've watched all 21 previous installments because I really love the Marvel movies," Liu said. "The superheroes grow old too - when their stories finish, we have grown up."
On China's top film rating platform Douban, the film is standing firmly on 9/10 based on 170,762 user reviews, higher than 98 percent of sci-fi and 99 percent of action films included on the website, with 62.9 percent of viewers giving it 5 stars out of 5.
For Douban users, the 11 years they spent with Marvel superheroes also made the film extra special. One nicknamed Tel said that while he was a bit jealous of the older generations of viewers, who could witness the curtain calls of "Star Wars" and "The Lord of the Rings" on the big screen, he felt lucky he could share the memory of the whole Marvel series with his generation.
According to the Bank of China International (China), the estimated box office revenue of the movie will reach between 3.5 billion yuan and 4.2 billion yuan.
That would continue the momentum of the box office sales of the film's 3 prequels, as "The Avengers," "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and "Avengers: Infinity War" previously raked in 568.5 million yuan, 1.46 billion yuan and 2.39 billion yuan on the Chinese mainland respectively.
With that number, the film would also break into the top four of the all-time Chinese box office ranking, while surpassing "The Fate of the Furious 8" to be the highest-ranking foreign film in the Chinese mainland market.
