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It is still early until 2025, but January is in the books and we have at least a few new films in the world. All in all, it was a fairly quiet month at the box office, With films like “Wolf Man”, the not expected. However, this is in North America. Elsewhere in the world, namely China, theater are overcrowded with customers who absolutely want to see what wonders expect in the cinema. In particular, an animated sequel is now by far the largest film of the year – and it is not even nearby.
“Ne ZHA 2”, the continuation of blockbusters “Ne Zha” 2019, made his debut in China last weekend. To say that it had a large opening would be a dramatic understatement. During the New Year’s holiday in the country, the animated film opened to almost 300 million US dollars in just two days. From Monday, February 3, the film already had 432.2 million US diversity. This is really just the tip of the iceberg.
The film added another 117 million US dollars on Monday, which means that its total amount of $ 550 million is. At the end of this sentence there will be over 600 million US dollars over 600 million US dollars. By the next weekend? Who knows. The sequel was also a monster on imax and broke the five-day record of Disney’s “Moana 2” ($ 386.3 million) over Thanksgiving last year.
For another context, only 13 Hollywood productions earned more than 432 million dollars worldwide in 2024. “Ne ZHA 2” did it within a few days. It will soon happen “Inside Out 2” (653 million US dollars) to become the greatest animated film ever in a single country. If things go on like this, we may see the first 1 billion dollar -sized in an internal market. This is an absolute monster.
Ne ZHA 2 is only part of what is currently increasing China’s box office
Under the direction of Jiaozi, “Ne ZHA 2” is based on the book “InvestiTenture of the Gods”. The first entry published in 2019 has also done the business and more than 740 million US dollars Global, with damn close to all this money from Chinese buyers. They are films like this as well as unexpected evening coffers like “Wolf Warrior 2” (870 million US dollars)“Hi, Mama” (822 million US dollars), “The Wandering Earth” (670 million US dollars) and “The Battle of Lake Changjin” (902 million US dollars) that have led to American tariff.
This has an impact on Hollywood, since Studios can no longer depend on robust cash reends from China, as they could in the pre-Pandemic period. Apart from that, this is also a memory that it is really a global theater market, and on the whole it is a good thing for the theater. At the same time, “ne ZHA 2” gets a US publication, but it is unlikely that it will break in a sensible way.
With a view to “Ne Zha 2”, China also had several other large publications on the New Year in Moon, including “Detective Chinatown 1900” (weekend of 129.3 million US dollars) and “Creation of Gods II: Demon Force” (42 , 9 million US dollars). The full five-day frame provided ticket sales of more than $ 1.2 billion. The largest American publication of 2025 so far is “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera”, with almost 50 million US dollars. That is the gap.
What is currently going on in China indicates that the global box office could recover in a large way this year. Last year the whole The global box office was 30 billion US dollars, which was less than what Netflix produced in sales. The New Year’s treasury of the lunar year was over 230% over last year in China, which is a good sign. Not necessarily for Hollywood itself, but for the larger, global picture. The desire for the great screen experience continues.
“Ne ZHA 2” will meet in the United States in the United States later this month. You can rent the first “ne Zha” on Amazon Prime Video.
