The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2023–2025
Creation of the Gods II — a ¥3B trilogy that dropped to half its predecessor's gross
Beijing Culture's sequel to Wuershan's fantasy epic grossed ¥1.24B in China — under half Part I's ¥2.63B — on a trilogy investment of ¥3B.
Beijing Culture · 2025-01-31
What happened
Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force (封神第二部) was the middle chapter of Wuershan's planned epic, backed by Beijing Culture (000802.SZ). The three-film saga carried a reported total investment of roughly ¥3 billion.
Released in the 2025 Spring Festival slot, it grossed ¥1.238 billion as of June 30, 2025 — barely half of Part I's ¥2.634 billion — and trailed Ne Zha 2 in the same corridor.
Beijing Culture posted a net loss of ¥232.6 million in H1 2025, its sixth consecutive losing year, and pushed the film segment's gross margin to −172%. Industry rules meant each chapter needed ~¥3 billion just to break even, so the saga's investors faced losses.
Why it happened
- The trilogy bet everything on spectacle and a single Spring Festival corridor, where Part II hit Ne Zha 2's record-breaking run and split the audience it needed to sustain a ¥3B investment.
- Two years of production and a mid-chapter story drained the goodwill Part I had built instead of compounding it, so the audience that returned was far smaller.
- Beijing Culture scaled the saga to ¥3B on Part I's ¥2.63B gross — a break-even line no middle chapter could carry in a crowded slot.
The lesson
A trilogy's budget is a promise the audience never signed: a ¥3B saga launched its middle chapter into a slot crushed by Ne Zha 2 and grossed under half of Part I. Scale a slate for its corridor.
Sources
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
More like this
A 200M yuan animated epic scored 8.1 on Douban and still pulled itself from theaters
Operation Hadal 蛟龙行动: a ¥10亿 submarine epic that pulled itself from theaters
Bona bet its entire cash flow on a ¥1B submarine film that grossed ¥393M
Somewhere, someone solved the problem this company failed at. 2nd Opinion →
Comments · 0
Sign in to join the comments.