Ne zha 2

‘Ne Zha 2’ Propels 2025 Global Box Office Estimates Upward to $34 Billion. Gower Street Analytics has increased its 2025 global box office projection to $34.1 billion, up from its original December forecast of $33 billion, largely due to the fiery performance of Chinese animated blockbuster “Ne Zha 2,” now the fifth highest-grossing film of all-time globally.

The revised numbers, released just as the film industry gathers in Las Vegas for CinemaCon (March 31-April 4), project a 13% year-on-year increase from 2024 and a marginal 0.5% increase from 2023. Despite the upward revision, the forecast still sits 13% behind the average of the last three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019) at current exchange rates. Meanwhile, the North American market forecast saw a slight downward revision from $9.7 billion to $9.5 billion. Despite Q1 performance falling within expected ranges, the lack of breakout hits in early 2025 contributed to this modest reduction. The projection still represents an 8% increase over 2024 and 5% growth from 2023, though remaining 17% below pre-pandemic averages.

The international market excluding China received a marginal $200 million increase to $17 billion. Recovering international exchange rates against the U.S. dollar could have pushed this figure $500 million higher, but lower-than-predicted Q1 results led to a performance-based reduction of approximately $300 million.

Gower Street’s projections utilize data from its flagship Forecast service and analyst assessment based on the current release calendar for the remainder of 2025.

The global cinema industry will be discussing these projections and more as Cinema United (formerly The National Association of Theatre Owners) hosts its annual convention in Las Vegas this week. China’s record-smashing animated blockbuster Ne Zha 2 has brought a much-needed burst of enthusiasm to Beijing’s beleaguered film industry. An irreverent twist on Chinese mythology and a classic 16th-century novel, the sequel has earned $2.03 billion and smashed virtually every box office record that exists for an animated feature: It is the highest-grossing animated film of all time (overtaking Pixar’s Inside Out 2 at $1.7 billion) and the top-earning movie ever in a single market. Ne Zha 2‘s success also follows a bruising post-pandemic period for China’s film business. In 2024, annual ticket revenue in the country crashed 23 percent to $5.8 billion, the lowest total in a decade, leaving many in the industry worrying that the country’s youth may have deserted the cinema for good in favor of free forms of mobile entertainment. In the wake of the Ne Zha 2 phenomenon, much of China’s filmmaking community is now asking the same question: Can one monster hit reignite a country’s passion for moviegoing and restore animal spirits to the country’s once-booming film sector?
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