As of Feb 22, Boonie Bears: Back To Earth, an animated film produced by Zhejiang Hengdian Pictures Co, had raked in more than 900 million yuan ($142.2 million) in box offices since it premiered on Feb 1 - the first day of the Lunar New Year.
The Boonie Bears film franchise, which consists of eight films, has earned in excess of 4 billion yuan in ticket revenue, becoming the most commercially successful animated film series made in China.
Since Boonie Bears: To the Rescue premiered in January 2014, the film franchise has consistently been screened during the Spring Festival every year, except in 2020 due to the pandemic.
The latest Boonie Bears: Back To Earth has become the highest-grossing film in the franchise - the previous top performer was Boonie Bears: Blast into the Past, which grossed 718 million yuan in 2019. The latest film is among the top 5 highest-grossing made-in-China animated films as well as among the top 8 highest-grossing animated films in Chinese cinemas.
The attendance rate for Boonie Bears: Back To Earth was 57 percent on Feb 1 and 30.6 percent on Feb 6, the highest among all films screened in Chinese cinemas on both days.
According to Chinese e-ticketing platform Maoyan, more than 61 percent of the film's audiences are aged between 25 and 40, and the proportions for those above 40 years and below 20 years are 15.4 percent and 9.4 percent respectively.
Industry insiders attribute the film's popularity among various age groups to the use of science fiction in its plot.
Zhejiang Hengdian Pictures Co is an affiliate of Hengdian Group, which runs the Hengdian World Studios - the world's largest film and TV drama shooting base located in Dongyang, Zhejiang province. Data shows that the films which Hengdian Pictures invested in accounted for nearly a quarter of the total box-office revenue in Chinese cinemas in 2021.
