2025 Box Office Bloodbath(?): China's Ne Zha 2 crushes the compeition

Over the past decade, Chinese films have been creeping up the Worldwide Box Office charts, and finally in 2025, it is a Chinese film that is easily the highest-grossing film of the year. Ne Zha 2 is the only film in 2025 to break $2 billion with a grand total of $2,259,822,417 according to Box Office Mojo. It comfortably beat all competition, with only Zootopia 2 coming remotely close with $1,830,234,346. 

Ne Zha 2 dominates 2025 box office

With the Avatar franchise flagging on its third entry Fire and Ash (making approximately $1.5 billion less than the original film), and the IP-fuelled likes of Minecraft, Jurassic World: Rebirth, How to Train Your Dragon, Superman and Mission Impossible all failing to reach a billion, it makes Ne Zha 2's success all the more astonishing. 

Not only is it crushing all American competition, but it doesn't need American audiences to do so. Ne Zha 2, as is very common with the most popular Chinese films, made $2,209,602,296 in China alone, meaning only around a poxy $50 million came from audiences outside China. 

This is the culmination of a trend we can see beginning in 2015, when Chinese fantasy adventure Monster Hunt just scraped into the top 20 films of the year with $387,053,506 while the likes of The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, Furious 7, Age of Ultron and Minions were all making comfotably over a billion dollars and sitting atop the charts. 

This was followed by The Mermaid in 2016 which was the 14th highest-grossing film of the year with $553,810,228, then Wolf Warrior 2 which broke into the top 10 of 2017 at number 7 with $870,325,439. Meanwhile, new entries from the Star Wars, Fast and Furious and Despicable Me franchises still dominated alongside another live action Disney remake (Beauty and the Beast) as the only films to break the billion dollar mark.

Arguably, the real shift happens in 2018 with three Chinese films being in the top 20 highest grossing films of the year. In 2019, it's four, including the original Ne Zha which didn't make it to a billion. Then, in the great global clusterfuck of the 2020 pandemic, there are a whopping eight Chinese films in the top 20. No films made even half a billion that year due to cinema closures and lockdowns and the general terrible state of the world. 

Following the anomaly of 2020, things went slightly back to normal, but it must be noted that in 2021, three of the top 10 films are Chinese, including the second and third highest grossers of the year behind the spectacularly successful Spider-man: No Way Home. Two of the top 20 are Chinese in 2022, four in 2023, three in 2024, and three again in 2025 including the all-conquering Ne Zha 2. 

All this to say, there has never been a Chinese film as the worldwide number one highest-grossing film of the year, until 2025 and Ne Zha 2. Not only has it beaten the slowly dying Hollywood franchises of Avatar, Jurassic World, Mission Impossible, Marvel and DC, but it beat the up and coming new franchises like Minecraft and potentially F1. 

Chinese audiences are clearly seeing less Hollywood movies, and becoming more accustomed to their own homegrown hits. Will Hollywood start remaking Chinese hits? Will there be more Hollywood/China co-productions like The Meg? Do Hollywood just need to stop flogging dead horses? One thing is for sure, Hollywood needs to watch its back. Chinese films are here to stay.

The Hobbit's Smaug decimates box office competition this weekend

I have written another weekend box office report for Tastic Film and it mainly focuses on The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug as that was the big winner of the weekend. You can read the full report at Tastic Film here but I have provided a little taster below:

After The Hunger Games: Catching Fire lit up the box office in November, you’d think there would be no more fire based puns left to describe what The Desolation of Smaug has done at the box office this weekend. However, the second part of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy does feature a giant fire breathing dragon so we can safely say it has had a smoking first weekend, leaving competition in the ashes and set the box office charts aflame. With an estimated $73.7 million, it has failed to reach the heady heights of An Unexpected Journey released last December. However, with another $131 million worldwide, The Desolation of Smaug is unsurprisingly on its way to becoming a huge success.

Even though many were at least a bit disappointed with the first film in the trilogy, fans have still flocked to the cinema this weekend to see the continuing adventures of Bilbo and the dwarfs and finally to see the mighty titular dragon in all his glory. The trailers have been promising something a lot more fun and fast-paced than its predecessor and with little competition until Christmas, expect The Desolation of Smaug’s total to continue to soar, possibly even overtaking An Unexpected Journey when word gets around that this one has more action....

Please continue to read the rest of the report at Tastic Film here.

As always, all figures are from Box Office Mojo.

More Box office reports:

Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Diesel-Powered Riddick Fizzles Out

The Butler Marches To $59.3M

The Summer Opening

Monsters Madness
 

Box office reports: Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness

I've been doing some pretty regular box office reports for Tastic Film, particularly on some of the biggest releases of the blockbuster season so far: Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness.

I look at what is topping the charts each week and how much money they are making and often compare it to their budgets to see how much profit they are taking. I'm really enjoying writing box office reports but I do find the predictability of the big winners a bit depressing. It would be great to see more box office surprises when world cinema or little indie films take audiences by storm and make a killing.

I'm developing more and more respect for the site Box Office Mojo where I get most of my figures from. It has everything and so many lists and other wonderful bits like news and comparisons and functionality that means you can look at monthly, weekly, annual or daily figures. It gives too much prominence to US box office figures and I'd like to see them have more for UK box office statistics but nevertheless it is an essential tool for my research.

It has been interesting doing these reports as keeps me very conscious of what is doing well at the box office and when things perform well or under perform. For instance many expected more from Star Trek Into Darkness and Iron Man 3 had the second biggest opening weekend ever just behind Marvel's Avengers.

These behemoths don't really give a chance to smaller films with all their marketing and dedicated fan bases. It just goes to show that if the studios are willing to spend big on marketing and push for the all important opening weekend, they can make back their huge budgets and then just sit back and relax and watch the profits roll in. However there is hope with smaller films occasionally breaking through (just maybe not during the summer blockbuster season)! Stay tuned for more of my box office reports at Tastic Film, all of which you can see by clicking here.