MUMBAI: Box office earnings of the Chinese film industry have jumped a massive 64 per cent in 2010, said to be a bad year for Bollywood. China ranked third behind Bollywood and Hollywood in terms of annual film output. It put the box office earnings of the local movie industry at $1.5 billion.

In a survey, China‘s media regulators have predicted the local industry, regarded as a backward territory until recently, will surpass India and Japan by 2015.

The year 2010 saw a massive growth in the film industry with China ‘s state administration of Radio, Film and Television reporting that as many as 500 films were made during the period.

On the other hand, the Indian media has quoted film industry sources saying that the earnings last year would be around Rs 10,000 crores ($2.2 billion) after rising 10-12 per cent over the 2009 revenue. The industry has been caught in the 10-12 per cent growth trend since 2008.

At present, the United States is ahead of all other markets as it notched box-office revenue of $11 billion in 2010. Japan came second with $2.5 billion in earnings followed by India. China‘s media regulators expect China to overtake Japan by 2015.

The highest grosser in the Chinese market was a James Cameron‘s Avatar that earned $200 million. Next came the Chinese film Aftershock that earned $100 million followed by another Chinese film Let bullets fly that raked in $75 million since its release in mid-December and its producers believe the total earnings will be much higher.