MOSCOW, February 1. /TASS/. The Cheburashka family comedy movie will be released across the Middle East in March, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Soyuzmultfilm animation studio Yuliana Slashchyova told TASS on Wednesday.

"In the near future - in March - [Cheburashka] is starting to be released in the Middle East," Slashchyova said.

Cheburashka, a family movie premiered at cinemas across Russia on January 1, has become the highest-grossing film ever in the country, outpacing Serf (2019), a Russian film directed by Klim Shipenko, and James Cameron’s Avatar (2009). The statistics provided by the Unified Federal Automated Information System of Theatrical Film Distribution show that Cheburashka has topped box office charts, earning 5.8 billion rubles (about $82.768 million).

Cheburashka is a family comedy movie directed by Dmitry Dyachenko and starring Russian most acclaimed actors. The story about new adventures of the small brown-furred creature with big round ears and big eyes, which has been an iconic cartoon character since the Soviet era, is set in a small seaside town where Cheburashka arrives from a faraway orange-growing country.