"Ne Zha 2" Becomes the New Box Office King, Signaling the Arrival of the IP Era in Chinese Cinema
Text｜Wang Yuchan
Editor｜Qiao Qian
In 2025, the Spring Festival film season has created three firsts.
The total box office reached 9.51 billion yuan, breaking the box office record of the Spring Festival film season;
The total number of viewers was 187 million, breaking the record of the number of viewers;
Also, the film "Ne Zha: The Devil Child's Uprising in the Sea" (hereinafter referred to as "Ne Zha") with a cumulative box office of 5.776 billion yuan surpassed the previous champion "The Battle at Lake Changjin" and became the new box office champion in the history of mainland Chinese cinema.
It has been three and a half years since "The Battle at Lake Changjin" won a box office of 5.775 billion yuan in September 2021. These three years have been three years of the slow recovery of Chinese cinema. In these three years, except for the sequel "The Battle at Lake Changjin: Watergate Bridge", only "Full River Red" has entered the top ten in the history of mainland Chinese cinema. It can be said that Chinese cinemas have long suffered from the lack of popular films.
Fortunately, the magic of the Spring Festival film season has worked again after many years. It only took "Ne Zha" 8 days and 5 hours from its release to breaking the record. Data from Dengta Professional Edition shows that the leading effect of "Ne Zha" is very obvious. This film accounts for more than half of the total box office of the entire Spring Festival film season. Such a concentration has never been seen in the Spring Festival film season in the past ten years.
Image Source: Maoyan Professional Edition
In addition to the above points, the rarity of this year's Spring Festival film season is the phenomenon of "a cluster of IP sequels" that people cannot ignore. In addition to "Ne Zha", a sequel that has been released after five years, the competing films "Detective Chinatown 1900", "Boonie Bears: Restart the Future", "Fengshen Part II: War in Xiqiu", and "Jiaolong Operation" are also well-known IP sequels. Although "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Great Hero" is not a sequel, it is also a well-known old IP. It can be said that Chinese filmmakers have together enjoyed the IP dividend, which is the result of the accumulation of the entire market over many years.
A Cluster of Sequels, the Least Risky Gamble
In the matter of developing sequels, Hollywood movies have been running for ten years.
Take Disney as an example. The Avengers series has made 4 films, and the individual films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe superheroes are countless. In addition to making sequels for Pixar animations such as Toy Story / Cars / Finding Nemo / The Incredibles, Disney is also remaking classic animated IPs such as The Little Mermaid, Mulan, Snow White, and The Lion King into live-action films.
Making sequels for classic IPs is the least risky gambling method in the film market, especially for works involving large-scale special effects and high-cost investment. However, this shortcut is not always feasible - Disney often fails, and the same is true for this Spring Festival film season.
"Fengshen Part II" is a typical example. Before its release, 1.66 million people clicked "Want to Watch" on Taopiaopiao, ranking second in the history of the Spring Festival film season over the years. Among them, 30% are old viewers who bought tickets to support the first part, obviously benefiting from the good foundation laid by the first part. However, since its release on January 29, the box office revenue has been declining. Currently, the total box office is only 1.037 billion yuan, accounting for only 10% of the box office of the Spring Festival film season, less than "Detective Chinatown 1900" (24%).
Image Source: Dengta Professional Edition
The fluorescent texture of Yin Jiao's Dharma Phase special effect, the confusing rivalry between Ji Fa and Deng Chanyu, and Jiang Ziya's endless preaching are the points that the audience complains about the most. At the roadshow in Taiyuan, the audience directly stood up and questioned director Wuershan why the film's reputation is polarized and has betrayed the efforts of die-hard fans who have been speaking well of the film "all along".
When the first part is excellent, the second sequel is more likely to be backlashed by word-of-mouth and traffic. This not only tests the production ability, but also the public relations ability. The publicity team of "Fengshen" did not do a good job in publicity when the first part was released, so that the box office was sluggish in the early stage of release, and it was only saved by the "voluntary word-of-mouth" to reverse the decline; when the second part was released, it obviously did not do a good job in managing bad reviews. Currently, the Douban score is only 6.1, and several social platforms are also full of "avoidance" posts for the film.
In contrast, although Chen Sicheng has always been criticized for being slick, plagiarizing, and deliberately stimulating the audience since the creation of the Detective Chinatown universe, the low status obviously also has the advantage of low status - when the audience does not have high expectations but wants to go to the cinema during the Spring Festival, "Detective Chinatown" can "make a fortune quietly". The three works of Detective Chinatown 2, 3, and 1900 are all betting on the Spring Festival film season over the years, and they have also accurately grasped the mentality of the audience.
Data from Dengta Professional Edition shows that "Detective Chinatown 1900" has broken the 300 million yuan box office for four consecutive days, with a stable trend. Its word-of-mouth is better than the films of the same series released in the Spring Festival film season, and the proportion of young viewers is the highest, 1.4 times that of "Ne Zha". Among the films in the Spring Festival film season, "Detective Chinatown 1900" also has the strongest social attribute, with the largest proportion of double + multiple viewers.
The Taste of Movie Audiences Runs Ahead, and the Financial Reports of Film and Television Companies Follow Behind
In 2023, when "Fengshen Part I" was released, 36Kr once wrote that this film, which has been delayed for ten years, does not seem like a work that would appear in 2023, because the era of big-budget fantasy movies is gradually fading away, and the aesthetic taste of the audience has changed from fantasy to reality.
Ten years ago, what Chinese audiences loved were the "Painted Skin", "Monster Hunt", "Detective Dee" series and "Journey to the West" series. Ten years later, it has become "The Battle at Lake Changjin", "Wolf Warrior", "Hi, Mom" and "The Wandering Earth". - "The Era of Big-Budget Fantasy Movies Is Gradually Fading Away, But 'Fengshen' Is Late | Focus Analysis"
This year, the situation is different again. The joys and sorrows of the 2025 Spring Festival film season once again prove how quickly the taste of movie audiences changes. The high box office and high discussion degree (whether praise or criticism) of "Ne Zha" and "Fengshen" show that the audience's enthusiasm for fantasy themes is returning, while the main theme action film "Jiaolong Operation" has failed to replicate the grand occasion of "Operation Red Sea" in terms of box office, screening, and discussion degree, making people have to admit that the audience's enthusiasm for main theme films has declined.
The producer of "Jiaolong Operation", Bona Film Group, is best at this type. From "Operation Mekong" to "Operation Red Sea", to "The Captain", "The Battle at Lake Changjin" and "Hidden Blade", Bona Film Group has also reaped many benefits in the field of main theme and action films, but the change in the audience's taste is obviously much faster than the change in the thinking of the film production team.
Yu Dong, the chief producer of "Jiaolong Operation"
Enlight Media, which is good at fantasy and comedy themes, has hit the jackpot with "Ne Zha" this year. It is probably not only the credit of the production team, but also the luck of hitting the pulse of the times. For a big-budget film with a long preparation period, this is really a gamble.
According to the announcement of Enlight Media on February 5, this "Ne Zha" film is expected to bring about 950 million yuan to 1.01 billion yuan in revenue to Enlight Media. Considering that this data is only based on the box office performance since the film's release for 7 days, there is obviously still a lot of room for the final income of Enlight Media to rise.
The fate of "Fengshen" is worrying. When the first part was released, according to director Wuershan, the production cost of "Fengshen Trilogy" was 2.4 billion yuan, plus the publicity and distribution cost of 0.6 billion yuan, totaling 3 billion yuan.
In conversion, the production + publicity and distribution cost of each film in this series is 1 billion yuan. According to industry practice, the break-even line of a film is three times the cost. That is to say, "Fengshen Part I" needs to earn at least 3 billion yuan at the box office to break even. Its final result is 2.6 billion yuan.
The total cost of the trilogy is 3 billion yuan, and it needs to earn at least 9 billion yuan at the box office to break even. When the first part ended its screening, the industry was very looking forward to the second and third parts being able to continue the momentum of both good reputation and box office success, creating a Chinese version of "The Lord of the Rings". But so far, the box office of the second part is less than half of the first part.
Its era has come back, but unfortunately it is not ready.
Will there be a third part of "Fengshen"? If the third part can still be released, will Chinese audiences still love fantasy themes at that time? But in any case, whether the life of this IP can continue or not, Chinese cinema is indeed entering a period of more IP capital. It may be too early to talk about recreating "The Lord of the Rings", but catching up with Disney may not be a dream.