China expects to produce more than 100 digital movies in 2006, almost double last year's 52, a film administrator told Xinhua Monday.

The digital movies will account for about one-third of the country's total movie output this year, up from 20 percent in 2005, said Zhang Hongsen, deputy director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).

"Digital movies are cheaper than celluloid films and easier to modify in the post-production audio and video phases," said Zhang.

"Crazy Stone", a black-humor digital movie shot by unknown director Ning Hao, reaped over 22 million yuan (2.75 million U.S. dollars) at the box office at a cost of just 3 million yuan (375,000 U.S. dollars) after being released in June 2006.

Zhang said China has distributed 36 homemade and foreign-made digital movies, bringing in total box office receipts of about 100 million yuan (12.5 million U.S. dollars).

He expects the total box office of digital movies this year to easily surpass last year's 110 million yuan.

"The quality of digital movies has shot up in leaps and bounds, " he said, citing Lu Xuechang's "Lease Wife" and Huang Jianzhong's "Silver Ornaments" which won prizes at the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival this year and last year.

(Xinhua)