🌅 Today’s stat: $1.72 billion

SOURCE

Maoyan

WHAT TO KNOW

• In just three weeks, Ne Zha 2 has become the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, surpassing Pixar’s Inside Out 2 ($1.7 billion), and the eighth highest-grossing film ever, behind Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.95 billion). The film is the first from China to surpass $1 billion in box office and is on pace to become just the seventh ever to reach $2 billion.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Industry trades attribute the film’s success to 15 years of building China’s film industry, culminating in a story rooted in Chinese mythology with production quality on par with Hollywood studios like Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks. Researchers describe it as a “significant milestone in China’s cinematic and cultural expansion,” suggesting it signals a “shifting dynamic in the global film industry” and “China’s broader ambitions to expand its soft power alongside its growing economic and strategic influence.”

CONNECT THE DOTS

• In his 2021 book, The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order, author and Chinese foreign policy expert Rush Doshi highlights China’s plans to dominate the 21st century, including its goal to displace U.S. hegemony and become the world’s leading international influence by 2049 (the centennial of the founding of the People’s Republic of China). Beijing has already spent the past decade earning influence through its estimated $8 trillion Belt and Road Initiative, which the Council on Foreign Relations describes as “one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever conceived,” bringing Chinese investments to Africa (where China is particularly dominant), Oceania, and Latin America, greatly expanding Beijing’s economic and political influence.