‘Ne Zha’ is One of 2019's Highest Grossing Films
For the first time since 2015, the ninth highest-grossing film of the year isn’t a Marvel-Disney or DC property. This year the spot belongs to Beijing Enlight Media’s animated feature, Ne Zha, and chances are you’ve probably never heard of it. Ne Zha opened to North American screens on August 29th and only expanded to 55 U.S. theaters on September 6th. Including its run at the Los Angeles based film festival Animation is Film, Ne Zha totaled a modest $3 million at the U.S. box office. But China’s first fully 3D animated IMAX film hardly needed the U.S. market for it to be successful.
Since releasing in China back in July, Ne Zha has grossed CN￥4.95 Billion (about $703 million) at the worldwide box office smashing a couple of records along the way. Ne Zha sits only behind 2017’s Wolf Warrior 2 as the highest-grossing film ever at the Chinese box office. The sleeper hit also stands as the most successful animated feature at the nation’s box office, a title that originally belonged to Disney Studios’ Zootopia. Director Yu Yang’s reimagining of a tale from Chinese mythology also holds the highest debut for a Chinese animated picture ($91.5 million), surpassed Avengers: Endgame’s gross—the highest foreign feature ever at the Chinese box office, and is currently the highest-grossing worldwide non-U.S. animated film of all time.
How Ne Zha was able to thrive in the Chinese market, where animated films only account for about 6% to 10% of the box office, is quite puzzling. Yi Qiao, the producer of Ne Zha and CEO of Chinese studio Coloroom, believes the film's success is attributed to the growing maturity of Chinese audiences and the popularity of animation fans in China. Qiao stated at the Q&A session at the film’s Animation is Film premiere, “‘Ne Zha’ came out at the right time. In the past, domestic animation targeted younger audiences. Coloroom has been working toward a more adult-targeted audience group for the past five years. We gained a lot of young adult and adult fans by getting rid of the stereotypical impression that animation is only for children, and this group has started to embrace domestic animation.”
As of right now, Avengers: Endgame is the third highest-grossing film at the Chinese box office this year. Typically a few of the U.S.’s most commercially successful films beat out Chinese produced projects at their domestic box office each year. But as Qiao sees it, however, Ne Zha might be a stepping stone for Mandarin films to reign once again at the Chinese box office.
For films like Ne Zha to have any hold a similar level of commercial dominance as the U.S. blockbusters, they’re going to have to break through to Western audiences. Chinese sci-fi, epic The Wandering Earth, for example, has grossed more at the worldwide box office than X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Jordan Peele’s Us, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, and It: Chapter 2 but has flown completely under the common U.S. film goer’s radar. At $699,760,773, Wandering Earth is 2019’s tenth highest-grossing film earning only a few million less than Ne Zha but both features are nowhere near as popular as any of the aforementioned titles in the U.S.
The future success of Chinese films overseas might not depend on the creative minds behind Ne Zha, Wandering Earth, Wolf Warrior 2 or even Operation Red Sea, the 13th highest-grossing title of 2018, but on how willing U.S. audience’s, who aren’t particularly familiar with subtitled content, are willing to accept these non-English projects. But then again, why should they have to take into consideration the tastes of English-speaking audiences? Especially considering the Chinese film market is projected to pass the U.S. in the near future
BOX OFFICE ROUNDUP:The Wandering Earth is 2019’s tenth highest-grossing film with a worldwide total of $699,760,773 - just a little over 7 times its estimated $50 million budget. Although, it may not hold on to this spot after Frozen II and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hit theaters later this year. Wandering Earth is already available to stream on Netflix.
Parasite, the latest feature from acclaimed director Bong Jo Hoo (Okja, Snowpiercer), released to South Korean audiences in May. After its $20 million-dollar Korean debut, Hoo’s class warfare drama has slowly expanded worldwide and grossed $98,971,572 at the global office.
Hustlers ended its box office run last week with a total worldwide gross of $136,320,228 tripling its $20 million estimated budget.
Director Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi) and worldwide superstar Will Smith failed to pull audiences towards their experimental project Gemini Man. As its theatrical run comes to a close, the 120fps shot film only made $153,165,405 worldwide just barely covering its enormous $139 million budget.