The shares of Huayi Brothers Media Group tumbled significantly after a rumor that the first-day box office revenues of its newly released movie Back to 1942 were just 18 million yuan ($2.89 million), lower than expected, 21cbh.com reported.

The shares plummeted by 9.9 percent and 6.02 percent on Nov 30 and Dec 3 respectively, causing the company's market value to fall by more than 1.3 billion yuan.

The film was released on Nov 29 and the rumor came the same day. Huayi released a statement on Nov 30 that the box office receipts of the film on the first day amounted to 26 million yuan, according to incomplete statistics, but it failed to stop the shares from dropping and they ended up falling by the daily limit that day.

According to the movie company's preliminary statistics, the accumulated box office revenues of the film were about 150 million yuan by the end of the first week after it was released.

huangying@chinadaily.com.cn