2025 box office report card: How a kids' film beat Mission Impossible, Sinners, Marvel; is year's highest-grossing film

Hindustan Times

07-06-2025

Nearly half of 2025 has come to a close. The summer blockbuster season is set to begin, but already, in the first five months of the year, 2025 has given a lot of reasons to cheer at the box office worldwide. Hollywood films found their footing again, even as Marvel continued to falter. Tom Cruise reasserted his superstardom, while Sinners and Final Destination: Bloodlines raised the flag for horror. But despite all this, the highest-grossing film of the year so far has not come from Hollywood. It has no big stars, and is made for kids. Yet, it has managed to beat studio heavyweights on its own. (Also read: Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible 8 defies US-China tensions, tops China box office with $25 million haul)
Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 has been the biggest box office sensation of the year so far. The film, made for just ¥600 million (around $80 million), it has already earned $2.2 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing animated film ever, and one of the highest-grossing films of all time, with only heavyweights like Avatar and Avengers: Endgame above it. Ne Zha 2 pipped Warner Bros' A Minecraft Movie to the top. The second-place feature has earned $948 million worldwide. Disney's Lilo & Stitch is in the third spot with a global haul of $632 million and counting. Another Chinese film - Detective Chinatown 1900 - is in the fourth spot, while Marvel's Captain America: Brave New World rounds up the top 5.
Ne Zha 2's success can be gauged by the fact that it has earned nearly six times as much as Tom Cruise's hit Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning or Marvel's Thunderbolts. The Paramount film has earned $389 million, while the MCU's antihero team-up is at $371 million. Despite wide releases globally, they have been unable to match Ne Zha 2's pace. What has made Ne Zha 2 so popular is its universal appeal in China. The film is based on Chinese mythology and legends, and has been seen as a fun, educational family watch in the country. This, coupled with China's impressive 90,000 screens, has meant that the film was able to sustain record footfalls for long durations, selling out theatres for weeks in parts of the country.
Ne Zha 2 may be hard to dethrone. Only four films have ever earned more - Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Titanic. Yet, 2025 boasts a strong line-up of films that can break the $2 billion mark. First up is James Gunn's Superman reboot, followed by Marvel's new Fantastic Four film. But perhaps the film that has the best chance of surpassing Ne Zha 2 at the box office is James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash, which releases in December.