The record-breaking run of 'Ne Zha 2' may seem like a surprise. It shouldn't be

cnbc.com:

BEIJING — For someone who's lived in China since before the pandemic, the success of the animated film «Ne Zha 2» marks more of an industry milestone than a surprise.

The steady drumbeat of homegrown animation had picked up in 2023, just after the end of Covid-19 restrictions, with popular releases such as «Chang An» — a re-telling of Chinese poet Li Bai's life from the perspective of his friend. It raked in about $250 million as the only animated film in China's top 10 movies for the year, according to box office data from Maoyan.

The team behind «Chang An,» Light Chaser Animation, works largely out of an old white building in the sleepy outskirts of Beijing. The ceilings are high; stairs wind through the building to connect multiple floors and rooms — and a gym.

When I visited this week, some animators — working on their computers in the dark — were racing to finish cinematic lighting effects on scenes for this summer's movie. Others designed historical Chinese robes, detailed eyebrows and re-created buildings.

«This place is no longer big enough,» Yu Zhou, president of the studio, said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.

He said the 380-person company needs to hire at least 100 more people in the next year to keep up with its new production plan: two movie releases annually starting from 2026, up from one a year currently. AI, he said, can only be a tool for now. Light Chaser plans to move to a new office in the second half of this year.

The studio sticks to a three-year production plan for all the movies it's making simultaneously. It tries to imagine the future, and whether 20 million to 30 million people will watch it when the movie comes out, Yu said. «Will this story work in three years?»

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