Blame the Nezha mirror: Chinese cartoon is among the leaders of Russian distribution

The highest-grossing cartoon in history and the highest-grossing release of 2025, Nezha Defeats the Dragon King, was released in Russia last weekend and proved that Chinese animation is in demand here no worse than advertised domestic novelties. So, his operating time per session is higher than that of the Russian family comedy "Bigfoot". Nezha finished the weekend in the top five in training camps. However, "Kraken" got the first place, and "Nightingale vs Muromets" came in second. Izvestia analyzed the rental results over the past weekend.

"Kraken" vs. "Nightingale"

Nikolai Lebedev's fantasy blockbuster "Kraken" was released in mid-April and has been on and off the podium ever since. Last time, he was displaced by the fairy tale "The Nightingale against Muromets," and it seemed that the Kraken deserved peace. And there is a reason — the billion mark has been passed. But at the end of this weekend, it turned out that it was too early to write off the Kraken. Yes, he overtook the "Nightingale" just a little bit — but he overtook. Kraken has 34 million 234 thousand rubles, and Nightingale has 34 million 120 thousand rubles. At the same time, the average operating time per session of the Kraken is twice as high as that of the Nightingale. And the average number of viewers is also higher. This means that there are fewer sessions, but people continue to go, preferring a proven blockbuster to new products.

"Marketing of family novelties could not cover the powerful sundress of Kraken and the shortage of content for an audience of 18+ at the box office," agrees Olga Zinyakova, president of the KARO cinema chain, in an interview with Izvestia. — And "Nightingale vs Muromets" has just gained momentum. It is expected that the fabulous movie starring Nikita Efremov, Elena Valyushkina and Anton Vasiliev for an audience of 6+ will increase the box office during June. It is this film that has the largest audience on the weekend.

Where do horns grow from: the main cartoon of the year was released in Russia

There are a lot of Chinese people at the shows in Moscow, they watch the Russian version.

It's true that "Nightingale" has a total number of viewers over the weekend — almost 100 thousand people. But he also had twice as many sessions as Kraken. I had to share the halls with the fresh family comedy "Bigfoot", which is designed for the same audience as "Nightingale". And she had about the same number of sessions. And the audience eventually split roughly in half. The average number of viewers at the screenings of "Nightingale" and "Snowman" is the same — nine people. The latter eventually took the third place at the box office — 28.7 million rubles. When Izvestia talked about this picture, it was assumed that the unusual spelling of the film's name was invented in order to attract fans of Vyacheslav Polunin's famous "Snow Show." Olga Zinyakova does not agree with this.

"I'm not sure if the pun refers most viewers to Polunin's show," she says. — It rather highlights the character of the main character — fearsome on the outside and charming on the inside. After all, the name works together with visual materials.

Anyway, it's hard not to notice the roll call in the titles, but let it be on the conscience of the film's marketers. Moreover, as they say, the winners are not judged, and the "Snow Show" is still the most successful novelty of the weekend.

The fourth place went to the horror "Bring her back from the dead" — 27.8 million rubles. This is about the amount that horror films have been collecting for many years on their first weekend at the Russian box office. It practically does not change.

How Nezha assembled a box office

Back in February, Izvestia was the first Russian publication to find out and report that the highest-grossing film of the year had been purchased for Russian distribution. Perhaps Nezha Defeats the Dragon King could have been released at a better time, with more advertising, there is an assumption that the Russian audience simply does not know what kind of release it is. As Izvestia noted in its review of the film, there were sometimes only Chinese at the Moscow sessions — they were clearly waiting for the opportunity to see the cartoon on the big screen, even if the distributor did not release a version with the original sound, without dubbing. Perhaps the ticket office would have been even higher then.

But it is noteworthy that even without advertising, the viewer in Russia still went to exotic content with a length of two and a half hours, and also not quite family-friendly, 12+. Nezha finished the weekend in the top five, earning 26 million rubles. The gap from the leaders, Kraken and Nightingale, is less than ten million rubles. That is, they are roughly in the same category, and in terms of operating time, Nezha has surpassed Bigfoot.

"Nezha is a phenomenon of the Chinese market, but it has not become such a film in Russia,— says Olga Zinyakova. — The specifics of the project itself and the strong competition on the date from more familiar and understandable characters affected.

On the one hand, this is true. On the other hand, there is a suspicion that Nezhu will simply be watched at home, because it is not every day that Chinese cartoons set world records. Now the collections of "Nezhi" are approaching the box office of "Titanic", there is very little left. And when this animation becomes the fourth highest-grossing film in the history of cinema, there will be a new wave of publications in all film editions. So Nezhi will definitely have a viewer, the only question is whether he will have time to catch the cartoon at the box office or will be forced to watch the spectacular blockbuster online. Now the intrigue is how the sundress of the first weekend will work, whether it will affect the training camp of the second. We'll find out in a week.