Niu Lai, a Chinese animated film centered around a cattle dream sequence made for $200, has reportedly become the most profitable movie of all time after making over $6.7 million at the box office as of Sunday.
The movie, whose name translates roughly to “The Cow Comes,” was reportedly made by a mother-and-son duo who bought rudimentary CGI technology and voiced all the characters. Chinese media reports indicate that the film took about five years to make as the two creators are not known to have had any filmmaking or animation experience before embarking on their maiden production.
The film also does not have a studio releasing it (unless the interior decorating company counts) and, as such, no marketing push in theaters whatsoever.
“Niu Lai was distributed by a family friend who went against the advice of his contemporaries. It opened on 245 screens before it was reduced to just four,” the South China Morning Post reported on Monday.
Niu Lai was released on August 5 in a limited number of Chinese theaters, receiving approval from the Communist Party censorship offices presumably due to its lack of political or otherwise objectionable content. It made $995 at the box office on its first day – already representing a profit for the low-budget film – but did not truly take off until its few viewers began sharing footage of the film on Chinese regime-controlled social media. The poorly shaped characters, highly pixelated scenery, and the slightly disturbing quality of the characters’ eyes became viral hits, fueling demand nationwide for more movie theaters to carry it.
Some viewers derided the film as “unbelievably terrible” and “worse than AI,” though many Niu Lai supporters precisely cited the fact that the movie was clearly not created with AI, and the product of years of human endeavor, as a reason to support it. The movie’s lack of any budget for marketing has also hindered movie theaters as its creators did not release a promotional poster, so local theater employees and passionate fans have filled the gap by hand-drawing posters to hang alongside theaters’ other features, including high-budget releases such as Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Drawing promotional posters or using artificial intelligence to create them appears to have become part of the fun of joining the Niu Lai fanbase.
As of Sunday, China’s state-run propaganda outlet the Global Times reported that Niu Lai has made $6.7 million at the box office. Given that it is believed to have cost $200, and has spent $0 on marketing, that would make it the most profitable film of all time, earning about 33,500 times the money that it took to produce.
The movie industry publication Slashfilm noted last week, when Niu Lai had only made about $4 million, that it had already dethroned the previous most profitable film of all time, the 2026 horror film Obsession. That movie, the story of a man whose wish to be loved by a woman who previously showed little interest in him comes true, was made for $750,000 – considered extremely low-budget compared to major studio releases, though very expensive compared to Niu Lai – and has made nearly $500 million at the box office so far.
Slashfilm explained that Niu Lai was likely the most profitable film of all time using traditional metrics.
A simple line poster for the film “Niu Lai” is displayed inside a cinema at a shopping mall on August 17, 2026 in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
“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,” the outlet noted. “‘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.”
The Global Times observed that Niu Lai could soon become much more profitable as audiences outside of China express interest and petition local theaters to import it. Bootleggers have published version of the film online, clearly recorded inside a theater in China, and at least one screening of the film was held in San Francisco, California. Since the film has not been officially released in the United States, it is not clear if that screening counts towards Niu Lai’s box office totals.
The movies characters have also become online memes, being shared in all sorts of contexts unrelated to the film. On Monday, for example, the official Twitter account of KFC Spain shared a video apparently showing menus at KFC displaying Niu Lai images.
The movie has also spawned a wave of apparently fan-made merchandise, which again does not appear to be making money for the film’s two creators yet. As a communist country, China does little to protect intellectual property.
“Merchants have begun selling plush toys modeled on its characters, while fans have created memes, posters and other unofficial merchandise,” the Global Times shared on Sunday. “Moviegoers have even placed homemade posters in theaters, although the production company has not released an official poster.”
Chinese state media has attempted to embrace the film, despite the Chinese government investing heavily in high-quality animated features to compete with Hollywood – features now largely forgotten in the wake of the bizarre Niu Lai.
“Its unexpected popularity overseas offers an unusual form of cultural export, driven not only by traditional film marketing but also by memes, curiosity and audiences’ desire to experience the phenomenon for themselves,” the Global Times quoted a regime-approved expert as saying.
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