Promotional material for 21st Century Fox's Avatar Photo: IC

Presales for Hollywood blockbuster Avatar: The Way of Water, the sequel to the 2009 hit Avatar crossed the 100 million yuan mark ($14.4 million) in the Chinese mainland, three days after tickets became available, data from online ticketing platform maoyan.com showed as optimized COVID-19 prevention measures boosted domestic box-office.

The film Avatar: The Way of Water hit the box office of 112 million yuan in presale as of press time on Sunday. The box office hit 100 million yuan as of Saturday evening, three days after the presale kicked off. A total of 1.37 million people on the platform said they wanted to watch the film which is scheduled to hit mainland screens on Friday.

With a running time of 3 hours and 10 minutes, ticket prices for Avatar: The Way of Water are more expensive than most of the movies in the market.

The average ticket price for the film was 91.5 yuan and 138.5 yuan for IMAX viewings. Ticket prices in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Haikou, South China’s Hainan Province are among the top three in China. 

As the sequel to the Avatar franchise, Avatar: The Way of Water appears to have garnered massive appeal in China.

“As a major blockbuster in December we expect the screening of the film to be a boost to the industry,” a representative from a cinema in Shanghai told the Global Times on Sunday.

The representative said that with the optimization of the COVID-19 prevention measures film-goers only need to present the green health code to enter theater, while the public was required to wear a mask during the screening.

Released in the Chinese mainland in 2010, Avatar topped the box office for 70 consecutive days, becoming the first film in the Chinese mainland to reach 1 billion yuan mark, with a cumulative box office of 1.71 billion yuan, Paper.cn reported.

The release of the squeal comes as the nation continues to adjust its COVID-19 approach, releasing 10 new measures.

On Wednesday, Beijing film industry regulator issued a notice, scrapping negative nucleic acid requirements for cinema-goers but maintained guidelines which limited screening capacity, the scanning of codes, measuring temperature and mandatory masks.

On Friday, Shanghai ended the requirement for negative nucleic acid certificates in restaurants and indoor entertainment venues.

Following the adjustment of epidemic prevention policies, cinemas in various regions across the country have accelerated the resumption of normal operations, regaining much needed momentum ahead of the Spring Festival holiday season.

The Chinese mainland box-office hit 34.26 million yuan on Saturday, with 9,151 cinemas in operation, accounting for 73 percent of China’s cinemas.

Global Times