Chinese blockbuster Ne Zha 2 recently became the first non-Hollywood movie to cross $2B worldwide, and in so doing joins an exclusive group of only six other titles to click past the threshold globally. Since the animated sequel began playing in China on January 29, its trajectory has been nothing short of stunning.
Hollywood generally gives huzzahs when a local film excels, given the knock-on effect of reminding audiences that it’s fun to go to the cinema while also exposing them to promotional materials for upcoming releases, thus stoking desire to return.
At base, any movie that does well is considered a positive for the industry, and while studio executives we’ve spoken with are gobsmacked by Ne Zha 2’s success, they remain cautious about its true global (read: Hollywood) impact.
Indeed, China has traditionally been a different beast given its showcase local offerings typically are compacted into particular periods — think Lunar New Year, Golden Week, etc. — meaning there’s not a steady stream of product for audiences to get excited about. And Chinese movies generally don’t travel. Although it has elicited curiosity and a strong $30M+ from a handful of markets outside China (so far), roughly 99% of Ne Zha 2’s total is spun from home turnstiles.
Anecdotally: More than 300 million tickets have been sold to NZ2 in China, more than the population of any country outside of India, China and the U.S. The number of admissions is about 21% of China’s 1.4B denizens. To put that in relative terms, if 21% of people in North America bought a movie ticket for, let’s say $10, we’d be looking at a gross of $812.7M, more than Avatar.
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A Hollywood studio exec recently commented, “In a market of 1.4 billion people, when you tap into the zeitgeist, you really see what’s possible.”
With China’s vast population, and after years of the industry building screens at a breakneck pace, something perhaps had finally to give — but those screens had been underserved for some time, with their growth outpacing product.
Bearing the above in mind, let’s look at the case of Ne Zha 2 — how it achieved such lofty box office heights in China and piqued interest from the rest of the world. Will it buck a trend and kickstart massive attendance at home across the rest of the year? What does it mean for Chinese movies beyond the Great Wall?
And what about Hollywood — does Ne Zha fever affect studio fortunes in the fickle market?
Read on…
Success in China
Reasons for NZ2’s success in China include being a sequel to the 2019 movie (previously the highest-grossing animated film in China at nearly $700M, using today’s rates), releasing during the lucrative Lunar New Year period and playing broadly rather than catering to a specific demographic.
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A zeitgeist groundswell and a wave of national pride took root — headlines in state and social media shouted about the movie’s increasing box office as NZ2 ascended the global charts, becoming the highest-grossing movie ever in China (dwarfing the previous record holder, 2021’s The Battle at Lake Changjin), the first to cross $1B in a single market and then the biggest animated film of all time, overtaking Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2, all in relatively short order. It passed $2B in China during its eighth weekend.
Some local companies gave staff the day off to see the film, buying tickets and busing them to screenings. The South China Morning Post reported that in mid-February, Shandong-based Weilong Food said on social media that it had closed its factory for a day and invited all employees to watch the film to “help Ne Zha 2 rank first in the world.”
Media also heavily leaned into the fact that director Jiaozi (aka Yu Yang) employed 138 Chinese animation houses to create the film. The state-backed Shine news outlet recently ran a story headlined, “Why Chinese Animation Rules the World,” providing a timeline from the Wan brothers’ Princess Iron Fan, which in 1941 was Asia’s first animated feature, to the rise of Shanghai Animation Film Studio, technological advances of the New Chinese Animation era and through to today.
Still, note that the idea of “patriotic duty” to push the movie ever higher in the global rankings, while perhaps a real movement on social media, is unlikely to have affected a great swath of moviegoers. Rather, repeat viewings were driven by word of mouth and the themes of family, coming of age, parental sacrifice and dedication and the pursuit of justice. We hear that audiences traveled from Tier 3, 4 and 5 cities to catch NZ2 another time in Imax for whom this is the biggest movie ever in China with $148M through Sunday.
Government subsidies helped spur the initial turnout, but that was only worth about $80M. At the outset, some watchers wondered if the eye-popping box office numbers were pure given long-ago instances of false reporting that led to an official crackdown, but there have been no signs of such shenanigans with NZ2. And, at a certain point, the scale is just too big. As a studio executive recently said to me, “You can’t fudge a billion dollars.” Much less two.
The box office achievement is perhaps even more astonishing given China is coming off of a dismal 2024 that saw its yearly gross slide by 25% versus 2023, impacted by economic woes and a lack of locomotive movies to lead audiences into cinemas.
When the movie hit RMB 10B, the China Film Association promptly issued a congratulatory message that read: “This film has created a box office miracle, promoting excellent traditional Chinese culture and the modern zeitgeist, innovating the form of contemporary Chinese cinema, showcasing the relentless artistic pursuit of Chinese filmmakers, and greatly boosting the film industry’s confidence. The glory of Ne Zha 2 is a highlight for Chinese cinema and, more importantly, a significant moment marking its rise from plateau to peak.”
Along with feeding exhibition’s coffers, there has been a nationwide frenzy for merchandise, including anything from branded toothpaste to collectible dolls. Tourism also is getting a boost.
Success Outside China
In markets beyond China, the film has played to the diaspora and also inspired curiosity from others who don’t typically seek out Chinese movies. An animation guru I spoke with as the movie was just rolling out in North America was piqued to watch NZ2 and learn what all the fuss was about.
The English-language websites of state-backed media have run dozens of stories touting the movie’s success outside of China, no matter how small the market. One also pointed to the film’s themes that “reflect shared experiences and universal emotions, allowing it to resonate with audiences from diverse cultural backgrounds.”
Refreshingly, despite rhetoric (and tariffs) emanating from Washington D.C., as yet there has been no significant politicization of NZ2.
NZ2 has performed strongly in such markets as North America, Hong Kong and Australia. In the former, it spent three weekends in the Top 10.
Still, there appears to have been something of a missed opportunity with Ne Zha 2 only playing in its original Mandarin version in North America, rather than dubbed, which might have brought out more families. CMC Pictures has not responded to Deadline’s request for comment, but watchers believe the distributor might have been caught off guard by the gargantuan success in China. RelishMix tells us that there is no significant social media footprint in North America. Deadline was the first Western outlet to review the film, and our critique is still only one of a handful on Rotten Tomatoes.
International rollout is continuing in the rest of Asia. NZ2 opened in Singapore last week and will premiere in the Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand this weekend via Warner Bros, which also releases Indonesia on March 21. In Vietnam, where the film is not yet dated, we’re told that anticipation is high. Global Times reported that Hekou in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province has witnessed a surge in cross-border moviegoers from Vietnam.
As for Europe, specialty distributor Trinity CineAsia has acquired markets that include the UK — where previews begin Friday before wider rollout on March 21 — Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Separately, via Facewhite, Japan is dated on April 4.
Ahead for China at Home & Abroad
Back in the home market, what does this success portend for China’s box office fortunes going ahead? Already, the forecast for the full-year 2025 is higher than estimates that came in at the end of 2024, likely nearing $8B. China, as with many markets outside of North America, does not date its films with much advance, so it’s hard to read the tea leaves across the next 10 months, even if there are some intriguing titles on deck (Writer’s Odyssey 2, We Girls, Per Aspera Ad Astra, The Litchi Road, Made in Yiwu). Still, it’s hardly a given when or if NZ2’s type of lightning will strike again.
Interestingly, the success of NZ2 has not necessarily goosed the bottom lines of other movies playing in China. Lunar New Year titles like the No. 2 release Detective Chinatown 1900 (part of a billion-dollar franchise) did well with about $483M, but the conversation has become so focused on NZ2 that pretty much all the eggs went into its basket.
On March 10, Fu Ruoqing, Chairman of China Film Group and China Film Co., addressed the challenges of supply and demand. According to china.org, the Lunar New Year season saw average occupancy rates exceeding 40% while the 2024 national average was just 5.8%, with even lower attendance in off-peak periods and smaller cities as releases were unevenly distributed across different periods.
Said Ruoqing: ”A thriving film market cannot rely solely on a booming Spring Festival season and a few blockbusters. To fully unlock film consumption potential, we must drive systematic policy innovations and foster a healthier, more prosperous film ecosystem.”
If however, moviegoing begets moviegoing, then down the line this year China could see increased turnout.
Whether NZ2 generates newfound interest in Chinese movies outside of the home market also remains to be seen. An opinion piece in the Global Times contended, “To truly connect with international audiences, Chinese filmmakers must find ways to make their stories more universally relatable without losing their cultural essence.” Kung fu legend Donnie Yen recently echoed the sentiment, telling china.org that the key to Chinese culture going global lies in “whether the stories can be down-to-earth and touch people’s hearts.”
Note that recent offerings from China that hit a chord at home weren’t designed for mass Western appeal. Think The Battle at Lake Changjin, about Chinese volunteers defeating American soldiers during the Korean War (which China refers to in part as the “War to Resist U.S. Aggression”), as well as Wolf Warrior 2, which featured an American villain.
What About Hollywood?
The jury is still out on what this portends for studio movies in China going forward, but a strong indication could come toward the end of the year, while there also have been some signs that authorities are relaxing censorship policies. Overall, China has been more miss than hit on U.S. films since the heyday of 2012-19 and coming out of the pandemic as the local industry upped its game and audiences turned increasingly inward.
It’s true that the studios have stopped relying on China for the kind of returns we saw back in 2019, considering anything from the fickle market as so much icing. Studio recoup remains 25% from China grosses, but as we’ve often said, 25% of $100M is still $25M. Now imagine that’s 25% of $1B…
Watchers contend that NZ2 could act as a teaching moment, cluing Hollywood in to the types of stories that resonate on a broad level. With this wild potential now tapped by the blockbuster, it’s perhaps time for Hollywood to reexamine its strategy (which doesn’t suggest just shoehorning in Chinese elements).
Of course, China has the final word on what runs on its movie screens (though studios can buy trailer time), and marketing to 1.4B people while finding a common ground across such a spectrum is no small task. Ne Zha 2 appears to have found China’s proverbial Peoria, but a question remains if Hollywood can do it too.
It will be interesting to watch how franchise pictures and brands that have a strong track record in China perform through the next several months — think Jurassic World: Rebirth, the live-action How to Train Your Dragon, Thunderbolts* and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, along with F1 and Minecraft (note that none of these movies has a China date yet).
Still, what many feel will be the litmus test for Chinese sensibilities toward U.S. movies won’t be seen until the end of the year when Zootopia 2 starts scurrying around (another movie that’s not yet dated in China). The 2016 original was a huge success in the market — a rare one that didn’t start out like gangbusters but grew as audiences identified with the story. The Disney resort in Shanghai since has added a Zootopia attraction that we’re told is consistently packed.
Beyond that is another Disney title, 20th Century’s Avatar: Fire and Ash. James Cameron is revered in China, and while The Way of Water did only $246M there, it released at a wonky time as the market was just coming out of massive cinema closures amid rolling waves of Covid. And yet, it is never wise to bet against James Cameron.