LOS ANGELES, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese box-office hit "Ne Zha," the highest-grossing animated film ever by China, took in more than 363,000 U.S. dollars in its third weekend at the North American box office, pushing its North American cume to 3.3 million dollars.
According to studio figures released on Monday by U.S. analytic firm Comscore, the film, adapted from an ancient Chinese myth, grossed 363,432 dollars from 126 locations through Sunday with a modest 2,884 dollars per-theater average, dropping from No. 15 to No. 25 among 89 films on the weekend box-office chart.
Well Go USA Entertainment released the Mandarin-language film with English and Chinese subtitles in select 3D IMAX theaters across the United States and Canada on Aug. 29, followed by other theaters on Sept. 6. The film collected 1.486 million dollars from 66 locations with a strong 22,528 dollars per-theater average in its North American debut weekend.
Directed and written by Yang Yu (stage name Jiao Zi) in his feature film directorial debut, this home-grown animation features a popular young hero from ancient Chinese legends and classics such as "Journey to the West." In the story, Ne Zha, born with unique powers, finds himself an outcast that has been hated and feared; destined by prophecy to devastate the world, the boy must choose between good and evil to break the shackles of fate and become the hero he wants to be.
The film, with a 4.9-billion-yuan (around 691 million dollars) box office performance after over 50 days of screening, is set to pass the 5-billion-yuan mark in the coming days in China, a milestone that has only been exceeded by the 2017 action film "Wolf Warrior 2."
"Wolf Warrior 2" brought in a total of 2.72 million dollars in North America.
Earlier this year, Chinese home-grown science fiction blockbuster "The Wandering Earth" grossed 5.87 million dollars in North America, becoming the highest-grossing Chinese film in the region for the past five years.
On the U.S. review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "Ne Zha" held an approval rating of 82 percent and an audience score of 98 percent as of Tuesday.
