(Yicai) Aug. 19 -- Cinema ticket sales during the summer season in China surpassed CNY10 billion (USD1.4 billion) over the weekend, more than a month later than last year, despite the Paris Olympic Games being shown on the big screen.

Comedy flick Successor is the highest-grossing movie so far this summer, taking over CNY3 billion (USD418.7 million) and pushing overall box office takings beyond CNY10 billion late on Aug. 17, according to data from ticketing platform Beacon.

Thriller film A Place Called Silence ranked second at nearly CNY1.5 billion, with Moments We Shared, Deadpool & Wolverine, and Despicable Me 4 making the top five, the data showed.

The summer box office, which runs from June 1 to Aug. 31 and is the main screening season in the Chinese mainland, exceeded the CNY10 billion mark on July 13 last year before ending at a all-time high of over CNY20.6 billion. The number of moviegoers also broke records at over 504 million.

So far this summer, comedies have accounted for nearly half of cinema revenues, the most since 2018, said Chen Jin, an analyst at Beacon. Last summer, comedies brought in CNY2.7 billion.

China Film Group and China Media Group joined forces to broadcast events from the Paris Olympics in cinemas, grossing CNY2.4 million (USD341,100), according to Beacon. The most tickets were sold for the table tennis mixed doubles, men's singles, and women's singles finals, as well as the final of the women's tennis singles.

Some 138 movies have been or will be released in China this summer, versus 140 a year earlier.

Editor: Martin Kadiev