While LILO & STITCH Hit $1 Billion, NE ZHA 2 Is the Real Box Office King of 2025 and Hollywood Should Pay Attention — GeekTyrant

Geek Tyrant

2 days ago

As you may have heard, Disney's live-action Lilo & Stitch movie just joined the billion-dollar club, making it the first Motion Picture Association release of 2025 to hit that milestone. It's a major win for Disney, especially after a rough year of costly misfires.
But, while Stitch is soaking up the spotlight, the truth is this film wasn't first across the line. That honor belongs to Ne Zha 2 , a Chinese animated sequel that didn't just cross $1 billion, it obliterated records and now sits at more than $2.2 billion, almost entirely from China alone.
This didn't happen overnight. The first Ne Zha was a cultural phenomenon in 2019, earning over $726 million worldwide and becoming the second highest-grossing non-English language film ever, behind The Battle at Lake Changjin 's $902 million.
Its domestic run was even more impressive: $719 million in China, breaking the record for the biggest animated hit in a single market, a record previously held by Incredibles 2 in North America with $608 million.
That set the stage for a sequel with sky-high expectations, and Ne Zha 2 it crushed them. Released on January 29, 2025, during Chinese New Year, the film broke records instantly. It pulled in over 700 million yuan (about $96 million) on opening day, then became the fastest film in Chinese history to pass the 10 billion yuan ($1.38 billion) mark, doing so in just seven days.
Today, Ne Zha 2 has earned an astonishing 15.44 billion yuan, or roughly $2.13 billion, making it the highest-grossing movie ever in a single country. For perspective, that's more than double what Star Wars: The Force Awakens made in North America.
Globally, it's now the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time, topping Avengers: Infinity War and Star Wars: The Force Awakens and sitting behind only Titanic , Avatar: The Way of Water, Endgame , and Avatar . It's also the only non-American, non-English language film in that elite top ten.
In the animation space, its dominance is even clearer. With $2.215 billion worldwide, Ne Zha 2 is now the highest-grossing animated film in history, far surpassing Disney's previous record holder, The Lion King (2019), at $1.66 billion. That's a $550 million gap, bigger than the total global gross of many Hollywood animated hits.
What makes Ne Zha 2 's success even more striking is its profitability. Reportedly made for around $80 million, the movie pulled off an incredible 27-to-1 return on investment. Compare that to Avengers: Endgame , which made $2.79 billion on a $356 million budget, which is a ratio of less than 8-to-1. Meanwhile, Hollywood continues pumping out $200 million blockbusters like The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman that need $700 million just to break even. If Ne Zha 2 had stopped at $500 million, it still would have been a huge financial success.
This is the real wake-up call: blockbuster filmmaking doesn't have to mean runaway budgets. Ne Zha 2 proves that audiences care more about story and cultural resonance than inflated VFX costs and endless reshoots. Ne Zha 2 had a budget of $80 million, which is far less than what Disney and Pixar spend on their animated films.
Another lesson here is global market dynamics. China used to be Hollywood's safety net, the market that pushed tentpoles past the billion-dollar mark. Now, Chinese audiences are pouring money into homegrown stories that reflect their culture.
Hollywood's old strategy of adding token representation and hoping for an easy box office boost is outdated. If studios want to win back international audiences, they need real cross-cultural storytelling and a smarter approach to budgets.
For Disney, Lilo & Stitch 's billion-dollar run is a huge relief after a brutal year of failures. Marvel's Captain America: Brave New World ($415 million) and Thunderbolts ($381.9 million) underperformed, Snow White tanked at $205 million against a massive budget, and Pixar's Elio couldn't crack $150 million worldwide. Those losses make Stitch's success a rare bright spot in an otherwise bleak financial picture.
Disney and the rest of Hollywood can't keep playing the same game. They need tighter budgets, stronger storytelling, and projects that can thrive beyond the U.S. market without relying on brand nostalgia.
Lilo & Stitch is still in theaters, while the English-language dub of Ne Zha 2 hits U.S. theaters on August 22. Considering the global momentum, its reign is far from over.