Since its release in 2019, Avengers: Endgame has remained one of the biggest and most successful movies of all time. By almost every metric imaginable, Endgame earned massive success. Naturally, the most obvious of these is box office, as its global and domestic takings were considerable enough to break many records and qualify Avengers: Endgame as the highest-grossing movie of all time. Its success was built upon the foundation laid by its status as a movie in the MCU, but its ambitious story and the sheer scope of its spectacle only furthered its popularity. Many of the records it broke remain intact, with very few movies in the years since able to quite match its widespread appeal.
However, one of Avengers: Endgame‘s impressive box office records has now officially been broken, and by an unexpected Disney movie. While many would have believed Disney’s best hope of relieving Endgame of one of its records would be Avatar: Fire and Ash, it was actually Zootopia 2 that dethroned it. Avengers: Endgame was, until now, the highest-grossing Hollywood movie in China. Though many would have expected Avatar 3 to be the most likely to take that crown, Zootopia 2 instead proved unexpectedly successful in the Asian market and has surpassed Endgame‘s Chinese gross.
What Zootopia 2’s Success Means For Hollywood’s Box Office Future
Image Courtesy of Disney
In recent years, the movies that seem most likely to clean up at the box office are big-budget sci-fi spectacles. Naturally, Avengers: Endgame is the most obvious example of an effects-heavy sci-fi movie making major money at the box office, but the likes of Avatar and its sequel, as well as Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies, have also made considerable sums. However, Zootopia 2‘s box office coup in China is not just surprising, but perhaps indicates a marked shift in which movies are projected to earn the most in each given year.
Of course, Zootopia 2 had the benefit of a beloved predecessor to support its popularity, which undoubtedly added to the success of its release. But the unexpected popularity of the movie in China is especially interesting, with Zootopia 2‘s box office evidencing that animated movies from the West have the potential to do well in Asia. Dubbing animated movies into different languages is somewhat less noticeable than doing so with live-action films, which might play a small role in Zootopia 2‘s Chinese success, but the implications are actually far bigger than they might seem.
It’s possible that Zootopia 2‘s box office success in China marks the beginning of a shift in the global landscape of cinema. Where Hollywood movies have often performed unpredictably in China due to different cultural leanings and American stars being less of a draw at the Chinese box office, Zootopia 2 has bucked that trend. Whether this will continue in the future remains to be seen, but Disney’s latest success at the Chinese box office is certainly an incredibly interesting turn of events.
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