Paddington 2 opened to a successful 26 million yuan on Dec 8, its Chinese mainland premier day. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Paddington 2, the live-action, animated sequel featuring the titular bear, has had a successful weekend since it arrived in Chinese theaters on Friday.

With a score of up to 8.4 of 10 on the country’s popular film review website Douban, the sequel to the 2015 movie Paddington had surpassed the Chinese box-office blockbuster bench mark of 100 million yuan ($15.1 million) by Sunday. The sequel has been released in China in English, which has British actor Ben Whishaw voicing the bear and in Chinese, which has local actor Du Jiang doing the same.

Over the past six decades, the cute bear has been featured in more than 150 books and four TV series, making it one of the most popular animated characters in the world.

Compared to the Paddington, the sequel has more action scenes that show Paddington's new adventure to unmask a thief.