Dear Gossips,   

The biggest movie in the world right now is one most people in the west have never heard of unless you work in the industry and even then it would depend on where you’re consuming your news. 

 

This movie, however, is now the highest-grossing non-English film ever; has just become the highest grossing animated film of all time, surpassing Inside Out 2 after just 20 days, with a current box office total of $1.7 billion dollars; and is on track to be the first animated movie to ever reach the $2 billion mark. Which would put it in the neighbourhood of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Avengers: Infinity War. Also, it *only* cost $80 million to make (I say *only* because obviously that’s a lot of money but considering it’s in the playground with the aforementioned juggernauts, that budget is considerably smaller) so they’re looking at a crazy profit … that isn’t benefiting Hollywood. 

 

The movie is Ne Zha 2, a story based on well-known Chinese mythology, which opened for the Lunar New Year in the domestic market and started playing across North America last week. In Toronto I’ve heard the theatres were pretty full, even with the snowstorm we just had. I’m trying to get out to see it this weekend and for the showtime I’m looking at, so far the theatre is already half sold. 

 

Ne Zha 2 is shocking the movie industry. They’re not trying to give it to much energy in the Hollywood trades but with the numbers that the movie is putting up, it’s hard to ignore. NPR just did a report on it yesterday because, of course, Hollywood has been trying to court the Chinese market for a long time (the size of that population is tempting AF) and hasn’t really been able to figure it out. Right now, it’s estimated that more than 200 million tickets have been sold in China – which is almost two thirds of the population of the United States. TWO THIRDS! 

The nonsense “yeah but” response to Ne Zha’s performance is that, obviously, the movie has made the majority of its money from the Chinese market alone. But if just one country can move that many tickets, to the point where the movie is now the highest grossing animated film of all time, and on target to get into the top 5 of highest grossing movies all of time, period, it’s worth thinking about what kinds of movies that market responds to and why Hollywood still hasn’t figured it out. But, you know, since DEI is dead… why bother? 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey   

Share this post