Ne Zha 2 leaving theaters
Jun. 30th, 2025 12:24 pmCongrats for making world wide box office records all this time. I hear that it's finally finished its run yesterday. So now we start the wait for it to come online for streaming services. It's not gonna be the same as watching it on a big screen (and I never did get to see it on IMAX, boo T_T) but it's better than nothing.
That said, been browsing the various box office discussions in CN and US. Well, mostly CN because the topic has pretty much died off in the US aside from the really obvious anti-CN bots. Glad to see that the the tried and true adage of '人'红是非多 still holds true...lol.
So many haters dissing the movie for staying in theaters for "over half a year". Despite the fact there are 2 other movies also just leaving the theaters which were similarly finishing the 5 month run from the New Years bracket. But nobody cares about them. Or the fact that there is absolutely no other competition in the theaters this year, so what should theaters be kicking out its only money-maker be replacing it with? Feh.
And then there's the people claiming that the box office numbers are faked by a government conspiracy (these are usually voices from the US). Or are artificially driven up by propaganda urging the masses buying tickets as an act of patriotism (these are usually voices from CN). Quite the bit of historical revisionism going on. As mentioned before, I was following the CNY box office, and before the holiday period started, official state media were definitely helping promote some movies...but they were Creation of the Gods 2 and Condor Heros (both of which flopped *rolleyes*), not Nezha 2. Most serious prediction indicators had NZ2 making about ~30亿 (less than the total box office of Nezha 1, on the theory that it would be hit by sequelitis and the general "bad entertainment economy"). It was barely on the radar as a competitor by the other movies in that time bracket.
CCTV only started widely "promoting" Nezha after it started shattering box office records left and right. So in other words, state media belatedly hitched themselves onto this bandwagon after it had already strapped on boosters and took off. They were not the driving force behind its success. (IMO the "State" probably also had some of the conservative attitude of cartoons are for kids and only live action blockbusters are worth "backing"...but NZ2's success spoke for itself, and they still had KPI to fill. >.>)
And along the same vein, "patriotism" isn't the force behind it's success either. Because like with the 30e prediction, nobody was expecting it to make global records it did. Being proud of a Chinese film *after* it made said records, isn't the same thing as being the *cause* of said record. There's a thing called cause and effect; one comes before the other. *eyeroll*
Someone drew up this nice graph of Nezha 2's box office growth over time. As shown, it made the majority of its revenue during the holiday period up to 元宵.

Anyway, congrats again to Ne Zha 2. With those box office numbers, honestly it doesn't need to worry about the haters. Very obviously, the silent majority has already spoken with their wallets, and will likely do the same when Ne Zha 3 comes out.
That said, been browsing the various box office discussions in CN and US. Well, mostly CN because the topic has pretty much died off in the US aside from the really obvious anti-CN bots. Glad to see that the the tried and true adage of '人'红是非多 still holds true...lol.
So many haters dissing the movie for staying in theaters for "over half a year". Despite the fact there are 2 other movies also just leaving the theaters which were similarly finishing the 5 month run from the New Years bracket. But nobody cares about them. Or the fact that there is absolutely no other competition in the theaters this year, so what should theaters be kicking out its only money-maker be replacing it with? Feh.
And then there's the people claiming that the box office numbers are faked by a government conspiracy (these are usually voices from the US). Or are artificially driven up by propaganda urging the masses buying tickets as an act of patriotism (these are usually voices from CN). Quite the bit of historical revisionism going on. As mentioned before, I was following the CNY box office, and before the holiday period started, official state media were definitely helping promote some movies...but they were Creation of the Gods 2 and Condor Heros (both of which flopped *rolleyes*), not Nezha 2. Most serious prediction indicators had NZ2 making about ~30亿 (less than the total box office of Nezha 1, on the theory that it would be hit by sequelitis and the general "bad entertainment economy"). It was barely on the radar as a competitor by the other movies in that time bracket.
CCTV only started widely "promoting" Nezha after it started shattering box office records left and right. So in other words, state media belatedly hitched themselves onto this bandwagon after it had already strapped on boosters and took off. They were not the driving force behind its success. (IMO the "State" probably also had some of the conservative attitude of cartoons are for kids and only live action blockbusters are worth "backing"...but NZ2's success spoke for itself, and they still had KPI to fill. >.>)
And along the same vein, "patriotism" isn't the force behind it's success either. Because like with the 30e prediction, nobody was expecting it to make global records it did. Being proud of a Chinese film *after* it made said records, isn't the same thing as being the *cause* of said record. There's a thing called cause and effect; one comes before the other. *eyeroll*
Someone drew up this nice graph of Nezha 2's box office growth over time. As shown, it made the majority of its revenue during the holiday period up to 元宵.

Anyway, congrats again to Ne Zha 2. With those box office numbers, honestly it doesn't need to worry about the haters. Very obviously, the silent majority has already spoken with their wallets, and will likely do the same when Ne Zha 3 comes out.