Ushering in the Year of the Snake, China’s Spring Festival 2025 has set a new record for box office during the annual holiday period. Total Mainland grosses reached RMB 9.51B ($1.3B) from January 28-February 4. This outstrips the previous record of RMB 8.02B.
The new milestone was expected once Chinese New Year turnstiles kicked into gear in earnest on January 29, with the biggest gross for a single day in China at RMB 1.8B ($247.5M) across all titles. Momentum did not falter over the following week, with each day through yesterday clocking more than RMB 1B ($137.5M).
The total number of tickets sold during the frame (also referred to as Spring Festival and Lunar New Year) was a record 187M, according to Maoyan.
Notably and massively leading play is Ne Zha 2 which grossed RMB 4.84B ($665.6M) through yesterday (which, incidentally, was the biggest day of its run so far). This is the single-film box office record for the Chinese New Year period in the market’s history, per Maoyan.
Including today’s early numbers, Ne Zha 2 has already overtaken its 2019 predecessor and is closing in on 2021’s The Battle at Lake Changjin to become China’s biggest film ever. Maoyan is now predicting that the animated sequel finals at RMB 8.7B ($1.2B) in China. If it crosses $1B, it would be the first time a film has reached that benchmark in a single market. Anything over Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens’ $936.7M North American haul would make Ne Zha 2 the highest grossing movie ever in a single market.
Coming in at No. 2 across the Lunar New Year stretch is Chen Sicheng’s fourquel Detective Chinatown 1900 with RMB 2.28B ($313.5M). It’s followed by Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force with RMB 998M ($137.2M), Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants (RMB 591.5M/$81.3M), Boonie Bears: Future Reborn (RMB 508.6M/$70M) and Operation Hadal (RMB 290.8M/$40M). All are still playing.
A promotional scheme launched this past December by the China Film Administration to offer subsidies of RMB 600M ($83M) to the moviegoing public through February, alongside other campaigns at regional levels, appear to have helped spur traffic, but that traffic just kept going. It helped that each of the six new films released during the festive period were sequels or adaptations of known IP. USC professor and China expert Stanley Rosen tells Deadline, “I think the most important reason for success is the familiarity and quality of the films, all of which are part of a franchise.”
The Spring Festival frame 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 after a dismal full-year 2024 which saw the market slide 25% overall versus 2023.
Comments Rosen, “The success in film is part of what seems to be the wider success in ‘cultural tourism’ and increased consumption. Things may well be bad economically in China, and that may ironically support the desire for entertainment, including among underemployed youth.”
What this portends for Hollywood movies in China going forward is still up in the air. The market accepted a host of studio titles in 2024 — and appeared to ease some censorship restrictions — with two Hollywood films ending up in the Top 10 of the year. However, the situation won’t become clearer until we see the performance of key titles in the latter half of 2025, particularly Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire & Ash.