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China began ushering in the Year of the Snake last Wednesday, as local audiences sank their teeth into a host of new films with record-breaking gusto. The trend continued throughout the weekend with grosses for all films in release (including holdovers) reaching RMB 7B ($965.4M) from Wednesday-Sunday, according to Maoyan. The Chinese New Year holiday was extended this year and runs through February 4, meaning it’s possible that 2025 becomes the biggest Lunar New Year period ever at the local box office.
This has also been a record-breaking few days for Imax which saw five of the new Chinese films released in the format adding up to $38.1M through Sunday in China. That’s already the biggest CNY ever for Imax, besting 2023’s $34M, and with two days left in the stretch.
Overall, as we noted on Wednesday, Enlight’s animated fantasy adventure sequel Ne Zha 2 from director Yu Yang was the leader going into the period (which is also known as Spring Festival), and it never let go, now with RMB 3.12B ($430.3M) through Sunday. While Maoyan is currently predicting a $938M final, there may be a possibility Ne Zha 2 becomes the first movie to ever gross $1B in a single market.
In Imax, Ne Zha 2 generated $22.1M — the fastest Imax release ever to surpass RMB 100M ($13.8M) in China.
In second place is Maoyan’s Detective Chinatown 1900, the fourth in Chen Sicheng’s $1.3B+ grossing franchise. It held the No. 2 spot throughout the weekend and sleuthed its way to RMB 1.82B ($251M) through Sunday. Imax’s portion was $2.6M.
Behind DC4, Alibaba’s Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force landed at No. 3 with RMB 895.3M ($123.5M). Imax picked up $7.3M of that. (Well Go USA released the Wuershan sequel to $1.3M domestically this session.)
China Film Group’s Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants, from director Tsui Hark, did RMB 543.8M ($75M) through Sunday ($3.5M for Imax).
The latest in the long-running Boonie Bears animated franchise, Boonie Bears: Future Reborn, did RMB 418M ($57.6M). And, Bona’s naval drama Operation Hadal, came in with RMB 240M ($33.1M) including $2.6M in Imax.
This is good news for China after a woeful 2024 that saw a roughly 25% full-year slide versus 2023. As we noted last week, a promotional scheme was launched this past December by the China Film Administration to offer subsidies of RMB 600M ($83M) to the moviegoing public through February. The Spring Festival period is typically the most lucrative for cinemas during the year in China, so the performance this week doesn’t necessarily signal a return to full force, but it is encouraging.
Note that some of the above titles had releases in other markets this weekend; we will update with full grosses when they become available.
