(Yicai Global) Feb. 22 -- US online video site Netflix has purchased the streaming rights of the Wandering Earth, the highest-grossing Imax movie ever released in China. 

Netflix will translate the Wandering Earth into 28 languages for global audiences, state-backed Xinhua News Agency reported. The California-based buyer did not disclose the date of release.

The movie has become the most popular Chinese film in North American cinemas in five years, according to Shanghai-based China Media Capital, the film's distributor in the overseas region.

The movie has generated over CNY4 billion (USD595 million) in box office receipts in China since its debut on Feb. 5, the first day of the Lunar New Year holidays, making it the second-highest grossing homemade Chinese movie of all time.

The Wandering Earth is adapted from a novel made by Chinese Hugo Award winner Liu Cixin, and it tells a story about the last efforts of the mankind to save the planet by propelling it out of the solar system. 

Editor: Emmi Laine