SHANGHAI, may 1 (Reuters) - China's box office sales grew at their fastest pace in over a year in April, driven by the U.S. action movie "The Fate of the Furious", the eighth instalment of the high-octane fast car franchise.
Monthly ticket sales jumped nearly 57 percent from the same period a year ago to 4.9 billion yuan ($707.5 million), data from box office tracker EntGroup showed, the largest monthly growth since February last year.
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Actors Charlize Theron (L) and Jason Statham attend a media event for the new film "The Fate of the Furious" in Beijing, China March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song/Files[/caption]
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Actor Charlize Theron takes pictures on the red carpet at a media event for the new film "The Fate of the Furious" in Beijing, China March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song/Files[/caption]
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Actors Tyrese Gibson, Nathalie Emmanuell, Vin Diesel and Ludacris attend 'The Fate Of The Furious' New York premiere at Radio City Music Hall in New York, U.S. April 8, 2017. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/Files[/caption]
China's box office, a magnet for Hollywood producers, saw growth stall last year amid a crackdown on subsidies and a weak slate of movies. Ticket sales grew under 4 percent in 2016, down sharply from around 50-percent growth the year before.
After a stronger start this year, China ticket sales slid again in February and March.
The sharp April rise came on the back of the latest outing from Universal's hugely-popular Fast and Furious franchise. The film, released in mid-April in China, has so far raked in $362.7 million in the China market, EntGroup data showed.
Despite a slowdown in box office sales in the market, U.S. studios are increasingly looking to China to boost global revenues, though they face issues from a local quota system for imported films to questions over censorship.
Hollywood is lobbying to increase the official quota level of 34 imported films a year and to raise the share of sales that international partners receive, as a revenue-sharing deal struck in 2012 comes up for review this year.
"The Fate of the Furious", which stars Vin Diesel and Jason Statham, is the second-highest grossing movie of 2017 so far behind "Beauty and the Beast", with global ticket sales of $1.06 billion, according to Box Office Mojo.
