Box Office: Chinese Animated Film 'Ne Zha 2' Shatters Record

Released on January 29 on Wednesday, the sequel to the 2019 movie took a massive opening of approximately $68 million before exploding during the Friday-Sunday weekend. It grossed an insane approximately $666 million (RMB 4.84B) in the first 7 days.

This is the single-film box office record for the Chinese New Year period in the history of the Chinese box office. It is set to become the biggest grosser in China by beating 2021's The Battle at Lake Changjin, which grossed RMB 5.77 billion ($800 million) by Thursday (9 days) already.

According to Deadline, the total Mainland grosses of all movies reached RMB 9.51B ($1.3 billion) from January 28-February 4, making it the biggest Lunar New Year weekend by outgrossing the previous record of RMB 8.02 billion. From the same period last year, China's box office saw an insane increase of 234%.

The animated franchise has historically dominated the box office as the original Ne Zha is the 5th highest-grossing title ever at the China box office with RMB 5.03 billion. The latest sequel is projected to become the first $1 billion grosser in the market and is expected to finish its run with $1.2+ billion. The movie was made on a budget of RMB 600 million ($80 million).

Stay tuned...