Chinese animation Nobody made an unusual hop to the top of the local box office in its third weekend, dethroning historical drama Dead To Rights,
Chinese animation Nobody made an unusual hop to the top of the local box office in its third weekend, dethroning historical drama Dead To Rights, as the summer box office in China hit the $1.4bn (RMB10bn) milestone.
Produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio, Nobody opened on August 2 and ranked second for two sessions, behind Dead To Rights. However, it took $32.9m (RMB237.1m) from August 15-17, topping the weekend box office for the first time and has become the highest grossing 2D Chinese animated feature film of all time in the country, with cumulative takings of $138.5m (RMB997m).
Directed by Yu Shui, the film follows a pig, a toad, a weasel and an orangutan – four low-ranking monsters from Langlang Mountain – who embark on a west-bound journey not unlike the Chinese classic Journey To The West. The pig character is originated from one of the eight standalone episodes that form animated anthology series Yao-Chinese Folktales, which has reportedly generated more than 260 million views on streaming platform Bilibili since its launch in January 2023.
China’s summer box office, which began on June 1 and runs through August, remained largely still until the last week of July when Dead To Rights opened on July 25. The historical war drama, set against the backdrop of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre during the Second World War, created an instant buzz and has since taken $355.7m (RMB2.56bn), making it the top summer hit and the country’s third biggest film of 2025 to date.
The film is directed by Shen Ao whose feature debut No More Bets was a smash hit in the summer of 2023 and ended up as China’s third biggest film of that year with $535.5m (RMB3.84bn).
Aside from Dead To Rights and Nobody, further summer hits include Da Peng’s period comedy drama The Lychee Road, US tentpole Jurassic World Rebirth and Chinese animation The Legend Of Hei 2.
The August 15-17 weekend box office added $102.8m, lifting the country’s 2025 running total earnings to $5.17bn – an 18.3% enhance on the same period last year. New releases that weekend included Larry Yang’s action heist film The Shadow’s Edge, starring Jackie Chan, and US animation The Bad Guys 2. They opened in third with $30.3m (RMB218m) including previews and fifth place with $6.6m ($MB47.4m) respectively.
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