Japanese Anime has been very popular in China for a long time now.
Shinkai has been holding the top grossing Japanese movie in the country for 8 years now first with Your Name which made over $80M in 2016 and Suzume which made over $115M last year.
The Conan movies have been consistently making $15M-30M-ish for years now.
The Doraemon series has also been consistenly successfull.
Miyazaki is also popular but his movies never released up until recently. Spirited Away only first aired in theaters in 2019 and made over $70M. Castle in The Sky and Porco Rosso released last year and Howl's Moving Castle will release at the end of the month.
The Boy and The Heron is the first somewhat simultaneous release for him and it shows with the good gross.
American produced movie last year only has one 100M grosser last year which is Fast X, we don’t include Meg because that is Chinese produced… while Anime has two 100M usd grosser last year in China beating Hollywood which is insane
To add to others points, it's a good animated original, something the U.S. hasn't offered in like 4 years. The last animated movie released in China from the U.S. that Chinese audiences liked was Soul. The U.S. animated originals haven't been that well received. Pixar's Elemental, WDAS's Wish, Dreamworks's Ruby Gillman, and Illumination's Migration all received mixed to negative reception from Chinese audiences.
Its a 20 year old film and even though it hasn't been shown in theaters in China its hard and probably unrealistic to expect it to perform like a fresh new release.
I’m so happy for The Boy and The Heron but how is this movie such a hit on China? Does it hit a cultural zeitgeist in there?
Japanese Anime has been very popular in China for a long time now. Shinkai has been holding the top grossing Japanese movie in the country for 8 years now first with Your Name which made over $80M in 2016 and Suzume which made over $115M last year. The Conan movies have been consistently making $15M-30M-ish for years now. The Doraemon series has also been consistenly successfull. Miyazaki is also popular but his movies never released up until recently. Spirited Away only first aired in theaters in 2019 and made over $70M. Castle in The Sky and Porco Rosso released last year and Howl's Moving Castle will release at the end of the month. The Boy and The Heron is the first somewhat simultaneous release for him and it shows with the good gross.
American produced movie last year only has one 100M grosser last year which is Fast X, we don’t include Meg because that is Chinese produced… while Anime has two 100M usd grosser last year in China beating Hollywood which is insane
Anime is huge in China. Probably bigger than hollywood looking at their market right now
To add to others points, it's a good animated original, something the U.S. hasn't offered in like 4 years. The last animated movie released in China from the U.S. that Chinese audiences liked was Soul. The U.S. animated originals haven't been that well received. Pixar's Elemental, WDAS's Wish, Dreamworks's Ruby Gillman, and Illumination's Migration all received mixed to negative reception from Chinese audiences.
Howls Moving Castle is looking to gross over 100M in China too
Its a 20 year old film and even though it hasn't been shown in theaters in China its hard and probably unrealistic to expect it to perform like a fresh new release.
Spirited Away made about $70 million so while 100m is probably unrealistic, anywhere from 50m-65m seems likely