While Lilo & Stitch hit $ 1 billion, nor Zha 2 is the real king of the 2025 box office and Hollywood should pay attention

As you have heard, Disney’s live action Lilo & Stitch The film has just joined the Club by billions of dollars, making it the first version of the 2025 film association to hit that goal. It is a great victory for Disney, especially after a difficult year of expensive errors.

But while Stitch is absorbing the spotlight, the truth is that this film was not the first through the line. That honor belongs to Ne zha 2A Chinese animated sequel that has not just crossed $ 1 billion, has canceled records and is now more than $ 2.2 billion, almost entirely from China alone.

This has not happened today tomorrow. The first Nor zha It was a cultural phenomenon in 2019, earning over $ 726 million all over the world and becoming the second non -British language film of increasingly English, behind The battle at Lake Changjin$ 902 million.

His national race was even more impressive: $ 719 million in China, beating the record for the greatest animated success in a single market, a record previously held by Incredibles 2 In North America with $ 608 million.

This placed the stage for a sequel with very high expectations e Ne zha 2 He crushed them. Released on January 29, 2025, during the new Chinese year, the film beat the discs instantly. He obtained over 700 million Yuan (about $ 96 million) on the opening day, then he became the fastest film of Chinese history to exceed 10 billion Yuan ($ 1.38 billion), doing it in just seven days.

Today, Ne zha 2 He earned a surprising 15.44 billion of Yuan, or about $ 2.13 billion, making it the film with the greatest collection ever in a single country. For the perspective, it is more than double of what Star Wars: The Force Awakens Made in North America.

Globally, it is now the fifth film with the greatest collection of all time, at the top Avengers: Infinity War AND Star Wars: The Force Awakens And only sitting behind Titanic, Avatar: the water of the water, EndgameAND Avatar. It is also the only non -English language film in that top tenlite.

In the animation space, its domain is even clearer. With $ 2,215 billion all over the world, Ne zha 2 It is now the animated film with the greatest collection of history, far overcoming the previous holder of the Disney record, The lion king (2019), at $ 1.66 billion. This is an $ 550 million gap, larger than the global gross total of many Hollywood animated successes.

What Ne zha 2The even more surprising success is its profitability. According to reports, made for about $ 80 million, the film obtained an incredible return to 1 on investments. Compare it with Avengers: endgamewhich earned $ 2.79 billion with a budget of $ 356 million, which is a ratio of less than 8 to 1. In the meantime, Hollywood continues to pump up $ 200 million such as The Fantastic Four: First Steps AND Superman This needs $ 700 million just to equalize. If Ne zha 2 If he had stopped at $ 500 million, he would still have been a huge financial success.

This is the real alarm clock: the successful film must not mean the escape budget. Ne zha 2 It shows that the public is more concerned about history and cultural resonance than swollen VFX costs and infinite shots. Ne zha 2 He had an $ 80 million budget, which is much lower than Disney and Pixar spend for their animated films.

Another lesson here are the dynamics of the global market. China was Hollywood’s security network, the market that pushed curtains beyond the billion dollars brand. Now, the Chinese public is pouring money into local stories that reflect their culture.

The old Hollywood strategy to add token representation and hope for an easy push to the box office is obsolete. If studies want to regain the international public, they need a true intercultural narrative and an intelligent approach to budgets.

For Disney, Lilo & StitchThe racing of billions of dollars is a huge relief after a brutal year of failures. Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World ($ 415 million) e Thunderbolts ($ 381.9 million) submerged, Snow White $ 205 million tannins against a huge budget and Pixar’s helium could not remove $ 150 million all over the world. These losses make the success of Stitch a rare light point in an otherwise bleak financial framework.

Disney and the rest of Hollywood are unable to play the same game. They need closer budgets, stronger narrative and projects that can thrive beyond the US market without relying on the brand’s nostalgia.

Lilo & Stitch it is still in cinemas, while the dubbing in English of Ne zha 2 It affects US theaters on August 22nd. Considering the global momentum, his kingdom is far from finished.