Chinese box office takings reached 4.84 billion yuan (714 million U.S. dollars) in the first half, up 86 percent from a year earlier, an official said here Tuesday.

Tong Gang, director of the film bureau of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, said the box office is likely to reach 10 billion yuan by the end of the year.

Box office takings surged to 6.2 billion yuan in 2009 from less than 1 billion in 2003 as more Chinese became moviegoers.

China produced 288 films in the first six months of the year and is expected to produce 500 by the end of the year, making it the third-biggest movie producer after India and the United States, Tong told a forum at a film festival in the northwest Chinese city of Yinchuan.

Director James Cameron's 3D sci-fi epic "Avatar" earned a record 1.3 billion yuan (191.8 million dollars) in China at the beginning of the year, according to the film's distributor, China Film Group Corporation.

The film, which aroused great interest in 3D movies, earned a record 2.7 billion U.S. dollars globally.