According to recent data from Maoyan Professional, the domestic animated film "Niu Lai" has surpassed 63 million yuan in cumulative box office revenue since its release on August 5, becoming a standout "dark horse" of this year's summer season.
"Niu Lai" is a low-budget, independently produced Chinese 3D animated film, created by director Xin Yumeng and his mother, Sun Lifang. The film received no external investment and took approximately five years to produce, primarily using home computers and free software, with manual frame-by-frame animation. Its box office success over just over a month has been nothing short of miraculous; if the mother and son were previously of modest means, this income would significantly improve their quality of life.
Previously, some mainstream media and industry critics pointed out that the film's rough production quality had touched the bottom line for theatrical animated features.Relying solely on novelty and meme culture to achieve significant box office success could set a negative precedent of "bad money driving out good" within the industry.