Photo: VCG

China’s box office revenue soared to 55.9 billion yuan ($8.05 billion) by the end of November, exceeding the total ticket sales of 2017 and breaking the country’s annual record.

Four domestic films were this year’s highest-grossing. “Operation Red Sea” topped the charts with $575.8 million, followed by “Detective Chinatown 2”, “Dying to Survive” and “Hello Mr. Billionaire”. The top grossing foreign movies at the box office this year were “Avengers: Infinity War”, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” and “Venom”, which is still being screened.

Up to 73 movies surpassed the 100 million yuan ($14.4 million) mark, including 39 domestic films, which accounted for 60 percent of the total.

China's box office raked in more than 5.6 billion yuan ($806 million) during the Spring Festival holiday this year, breaking the sales record for the same period last year. Many industry experts predicted that China’s box office could easily gross 60 billion yuan ($8.64 billion) at the end of the year. However, the banning of movie ticket subsidies earlier this year and the box-office downshift during the National Day holiday period made it unclear whether this year’s box office would reach 60 billion yuan.