‘Ne Zha 2’ Just Set A Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score Record
China has already made Ne Zha 2 the highest-grossing animated feature film of all time with $2.1 billion made internationally before the movie even makes it to West, but it’s setting records in other ways as well. Namely, given how it’s being received by audiences. Critics too, but especially audiences.
As it stands, Ne Zha 2 is the highest audience-scored animated film of the decade. Since 2020, its 99% on Rotten Tomatoes tops every other animated film you can think of. Here’s a list of some of its top rivals:
- Ne Zha 2 – 99% audience score, 96% critic score
- Flow (Best Animated Movie Oscar Winner) – 98% critic score, 97% audience score
- The Wild Robot – 98% audience score, 96% critic score
- Inside Out 2 – 95% audience score, 90% critic score
- Onward – 95% audience score, 88% critic score
- Encanto (Oscar Winner) – 93% audience score, 92% critic score
- Kpop Demon Hunters – 92% audience score, 97% critic score
- Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Oscar Winner) -90% audience score, 96% critic score
- The Mitchels vs. the Machines – 89% audience score, 97% critic score
- The Boy and the Heron (Oscar Winner) – 88% audience score, 96% critic score
- Soul (Oscar Winner) – 88% audience score, 95% critic score
It’s also above the first Ne Zha from 2019, which had a 98% audience score and an 89% critic score. And Ne Zha 2’s score is a full thousand reviews in, so it’s not just a small handful.
Ne Zha 2 will be out in the US on August 22, a lengthy two hours and 23 minutes for a family feature. How it performs here is unclear, but it essentially doesn’t matter as this is…a movie that has already made $2.1 billion worldwide. The first movie made exactly $3.6 million in the US, 0.5% of its total.
Yes, of course, Ne Zha 3 is in development, but reports are that it may not be released for another five years or so given production time and that it is “even more ambitious than its predecessor.”
This whole thing is a reminder that the world does not always revolve around the US, and absolutely enormous theatrical hits can come from other regions, especially the hugely populous China. It’s also worth noting the recent rise of Korean content in the US, and the dramatic increase in anime interest over time, much of that Japanese. So, bring the kids to Ne Zha 2 soon and see if you agree with the consensus so far.
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