As 2021 dawned, China shot straight out of the box office gate with a new record. On Friday, the market hit a milestone for New Year’s Day.

Estimates are coming in for January 1 at about Rmb 600M ($92M), besting the same day in all previous years. The big result was generated largely by new local title A Little Red Flower which has blossomed through strong word of mouth. This all comes as China ended 2020 as the biggest box office market globally, surpassing North America for the first time. As previously noted, this was on the horizon as early as October. Comscore estimates the total Middle Kingdom 2020 box office was $2.74B, although the China Film Administration has it slightly higher at $3.12B (Rmb 20.4B). Domestic box office is estimated at $2.28B, per comScore.

China has shown strong bounce-back during the pandemic which nearly a year ago made it among the first markets to shutter cinemas,...