Disney’s Latest Blockbuster Overtakes Avengers: Endgame to Become Hollywood’s Biggest China Release So Far

According to reporting from TheWrap, Zootopia 2 has officially shattered long-standing records to become the most successful Hollywood release in China’s history. By amassing a staggering $624 million in that region alone, the sequel has successfully overtaken the previous record holder, Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame.

This achievement in China serves as the crowning moment of a historic theatrical run. Just one week prior to this milestone, the film surpassed Pixar’s Inside Out 2 to become the highest-grossing animated Hollywood film ever made, reaching a worldwide total of $1.74 billion. This figure ensures its position as the top-earning American film of 2025. On a global scale, it is currently outpaced only by the Chinese sensation Ne Zha 2, which has cleared more than $2 billion.

The performance of Zootopia 2 is particularly striking when compared to the general decline of American cinema in China. Since the pandemic began, only eight other Hollywood movies have managed to cross the $100 million threshold in that market. Prior to this release, the post-pandemic leaders were Avatar: The Way of Water with $246.9 million and F9: The Fast Saga with $216.9 million.

This suggests that Disney has found a unique way to connect with an audience that has recently favored local blockbusters like Hi Mom and Full River Red over imported Marvel or action titles.

Disney’s success appears to be the result of a long-term strategy involving physical theme park presence and intense localization efforts. Jared Bush, who serves as the writer-director of the film and the chief creative officer for Disney Animation, explained the importance of this approach in an interview with TheWrap. He noted that the team worked tirelessly to ensure the humor translated across cultural boundaries.

We’re so lucky that we have collaborators worldwide that could not just translate our jokes and the story, but actually tailor it to the audiences, Bush said. And so you’ll get a wholesale different pun in different parts of the world that will work for that audience, and that, I think requires just a lot of people wanting to play in this toy box, understanding the tone and how to best convey to people from different cultures.

By combining this specialized localization with the popularity of the Zootopia land at Shanghai Disneyland, the studio has maintained a level of fandom that most other modern franchises have lost in the region.

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