Obsession Has Been Dethroned As The Most Profitable Movie Ever At The Box Office
by Ryan Scott · /Film"Obsession" is probably going to go down as the biggest story at the box office in 2026. It's going to cross the $500 million mark globally any day now, becoming one of the highest-grossing horror movies ever. It's done stuff no other horror movie has done at the box office before. Also, thanks to its insanely thrifty $750,000 budget, it was the most profitable movie ever made. Keyword being "was," because it's already had to surrender that title to a wildly unexpected newcomer.
So, what movie took the crown? A super duper low-budget animated Chinese movie by the name of "Niu Lai" has come out of nowhere to become a sensation in its own right, albeit on a smaller scale. Written by Sun Lifang and directed by Xin Yumeng, a mother/son duo, the movie was made over the course of five years and, per The Hindu, cost less than $200 to make. Not $200,000. $200 dollars. Two Benjamins.
And as reported by Reuters, "Niu Lai," which translates in English to "The Bull is Coming," has now made over $4 million at the box office in China. Or, to put it another way, at least 20,000 times its reported budget. What's even wilder is that the movie has largely been met with negative reviews. It made less than $1,000 on its debut weekend, but it earned the so-bad-it's-good label, with word of mouth spreading. It's now earned its place in history as a low-budget movie that made a killing at the box office.
So, what the heck is this viral sensation that many of you reading this probably haven't even heard of, exactly? Very simply, it's an adventure about a young cow named Niu Lai growing up to be a warrior. It's not AI slop. It was made by two people, and has taken off on those merits.
Is Niu Lai truly the most profitable movie of all time? Technically, yes
Given the amount of ink that was rightfully spilled on behalf of "Obsession," which cemented the new trend in horror of YouTubers being the future of the genre, eyebrows might raise regarding this claim. Is "Niu Lai" truly the most profitable movie of all time? In terms of how this has historically been calculated, technically speaking, yes.
That's not to say that this movie has made the most money, but in terms of return on investment, it has the crown. Typically, we define profitability at the box office in terms of how many times a movie's budget a film can make in ticket sales. "Paranormal Activity" was the most profitable horror movie of all time for a long time because of its initial $15,000 budget and damn near $200 million global haul. But its final budget was actually much closer to $200,000, at least.
As mentioned, "Niu Lai" has already made 20,000 times its reported budget, and the viral nature of it is only going to make that number grow by a lot. As evidence of that, in China's daily box office rankings, it recently placed just behind "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," which is just the eighth movie ever to make at least $2 billion globally.
"Obsession," meanwhile, carries a $750,000 budget, meaning it will have made around 666 times its budget once it hits the $500 million mark. Even "The Blair Witch Project," which did $249 million against a final budget of at least $200,000, can't compete. That film is generally cited right alongside "Paranormal Activity" in this conversation.
"Niu Lai" had virtually no promotional efforts and no studio help to polish it up. So yes, its budget was practically nothing. With a major caveat, it unquestionably now holds the crown.
Niu Lai is an ultra-low-budget box office sensation in China
"Honestly, for a film like mine, there's no point in doing any of that," Xin Yumang said on a podcast (via the New York Times) before the release, addressing the lack of marketing for the film. "We should just release it. As for whether the audience and the market accept it, only time will tell."
As of this writing, the director hasn't made any public comment after the movie's viral success. This has all happened very organically, and as multiple outlets have reported, a lot of it has to do with the fact that this is authentic. It's real and, low rent though it may be, it's being hailed as something of a rebuke to AI-generated "art" that has been infiltrating society.
Thanks to social media and the initial "you have to see this to believe it" nature of "Niu Lai," it's taken off. There are toys in the works and word-of-mouth keeps spreading. It's not like Chinese movies don't make money: "Ne Zha 2" is literally the highest-grossing animated movie of all time with $2.27 billion to its name. But this isn't like the increasingly frequent Chinese blockbusters we've become accustomed to seeing. This is something else entirely.
More like director Tommy Wiseau's "The Room," this movie has garnered its hit status due to it being confounding, not necessarily because it's great in any traditional sense. Either way, it's now earned its place in the cinema history books, as strange as it all is.
"Niu Lai" is in Chinese theaters now, but it's only a matter of time before it gets released elsewhere. Stay tuned.