There have been some highs and lows concerning the global box office landscape in 2025, but one of the studios that walked away with more wins than losses was Disney (over $6 billion), and its latest sequel, “Zootopia 2,” has broken a new record for the studio as it has surpassed “Frozen 2” as the highest-grossing animated film from Disney.
Its reported global box office total $1.46 billion has pushed “Frozen 2” ($1.45 billion) out of that spot, which is quite a feat given they’re both movies hailing from Walt Disney Animation Studios. However, there is a bit of a caveat here, as international animated projects are giving Hollywood a run for its money, and the Disney pic had some serious competition coming from China.
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While “Zootopia 2” currently holds the spot for the second-highest-grossing film of the year (we suspect “Avatar: Fire & Ash” will zoom past it, eventually over the next couple of weeks), after etching out Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch,” the juggernaut release of the year was the Chinese animated film “Ne Zha 2” with a staggering $2.150 billion cume.
Speaking of China, those audiences came out in droves to see “Zootopia 2,” with $560.9 million (and counting) coming from there, and could signal that Chinese moviegoers are primed to possibly support more Hollywood animated projects at a similar scale if they are compelling enough to locals.
It’s also worth noting that Japanese anime pic “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” is doing solid business as well with $718.4 million, nearly unheard of for a Japanese film, live-action or animated (just below “Fire & Ash” in the current Top 10 of 2025).
Anyway you cut it, Disney had a fantastic year overall, and we have to assume that Disney is going to move forward with “Zootopia 3,” given there is a huge demand and China’s ticket sales alone would warrant it.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
