‘Ne Zha 2’ Beats ‘Moana 2’ To Set All-Time Box Office Record For Animated Film Opening

The Chinese animated feature Ne Zha 2, from director Yu Yang, broke all kinds of records in its opening weekend, including beating Moana 2 to earn the biggest five-day animation opening of all time, as well as becoming the highest-grossing animation launch in a single market.

Ne Zha 2 grossed an eye-popping $434 million (CNY3.12B) over its five-day launch in China during the country’s Lunar New Year holiday. That figure easily beats the previous record-holder, Moana 2, which debuted with $386.3 million globally last November.

But there’s a big difference here between the launches of these two films: Ne Zha 2 achieved its entire opening gross from just one market – China – while Moana 2’s total came from 49 different countries and territories. (It should be noted that The Lion King remake had a higher five-day opening than Ne Zha 2 but according to “Hollywood accounting,” a five-day opening only counts between Wednesday-Sunday, and not Friday-Tuesday as was the case with The Lion King.)

Chinese box office tracking firm Maoyan is currently projecting that Ne Zha 2 could end its Chinese run with over $900 million, with a slight possibility that it becomes the first animated feature to ever gross $1 billion from just a single market. Wherever it ends up, it is likely to surpass the nearly $800 million (CNY5.7 billion) gross of The Battle at Lake Changjin to become the highest-grossing Chinese film of all time. It is also poised to surpass Inside Out 2’s $652.9 million gross to become the highest-grossing animated feature in a single market.

The film, nearly two-and-a-half hours long, is a sequel to 2019’s Ne Zha; both are based on the classic 16th-century Chinese novel Investiture of the Gods.

Ne Zha 2 is currently slated to launch in Australia and New Zealand on February 13, and in the U.S. and Canada on February 14.

Also debuting in China this weekend was Boonie Bears: Future Reborn, the 11th film in the franchise. The film’s five-day total in China stands at $57.4m.

Domestically, Dreamworks Animation’s Dog Man outperformed all expectations and opened in first place with an estimated $36m. It marks the second-best January opening for an animated film in the U.S., bested only by Dreamworks’ own Kung Fu Panda 3, which launched with $41.2m in 2016.

The Peter Hastings-directed Dog Man was produced between Dreamworks Animation in L.A. and the U.K.’s Jellyfish Pictures. Its budget is reported to have been around $40 million. Jellyfish has recently expanded with new studios in Mumbai, India, and Toronto, Canada. It is unknown how much each of Jellyfish’s studios contributed to the production of Dog Man.

Dog Man marks the third out of five weekends in 2025 that an animated feature has held the no. 1 spot at the U.S. box office. The U.S. theatrical marketplace for live-action films is all but dead, as animation continues to prop up the entire American film industry. Over sixty percent of this weekend’s top ten box office was generated by animated films.

After seven weeks, Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King is still at #3 in the U.S. The film added an estimated $6.1m, boosting its overall domestic to $229.5m. Its global total stands at $653m.

After 10 weeks, Disney’s Moana 2 landed at #7 with $2.8m and a domestic total of $453.8m. The film has now grossed $1.03 billion globally.