Sales rose 30 percent from 2011. Moviegoers in China spent 17 billion yuan ($2.7 billion) on tickets last year, turning the country into the second-largest film market in the world, EntGroup said.

Rainmaker Entertainment, a Vancouver, Canada-based CGI animation and production studio, has entered into a letter of intent that could lead to Rainmaker co-investing in and co-producing a slate of up to five feature length animated films with a Hong Kong-based partner.

According to EntGroup's newest data, China witnessed a huge boom in the domestic box office growth in the year 2012. The total gross reached 17.073 billion RMB, a 30.18% increase y-o-y.

For a country that wants to project "soft power," China is wrestling with how to reconcile its censorship system with the need to create films the world will want to watch.

The Chinese movie Lost in Thailand could become the highest-ever grossing film on the mainland, after recording ticket sales in excess of 1.1 billion yuan ($176.6 million) by Saturday.