Pioneering Beijing-based distributor Road Pictures has snapped up China theatrical rights to the hit Japanese anime feature Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginning. The company plans to release the film in China sometime in April. The news was released Tuesday at Hong Kong’s Filmart content market.
Among anime fandom, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginning is an exciting creative hybrid. It’s the first major collaboration between Japan’s studio Khara, the anime banner behind the cult Evangelion series, and Sunrise, the historic studio home of the Mobile Suit Gundam animated works. The film was released in Japan in January and has earned over $25 million. GKIDS gave it a limited release in North American theaters on Feb. 28, bringing in $1.2 million.
Road Pictures has carved out a powerful niche in China’s theatrical market as the go-to distributor of Japanese anime, a category that’s begun to out-perform many of even Hollywood’s biggest releases in the country. In 2023, Road was responsible for two of the biggest imported hits of the year at China’s box office, both Japanese anime: Mokoto Shinkai’s Suzume ($110 million/RMB 808 million) and Toei Animation’s The First Slam Dunk ($90 million / RMB 660 million). That same year the company launched an expansion into the anime merchandising and physical entertainment business, opening some 40 anime-themed stores across China. Road now estimates that it markets and distributes about 70 percent of the Japanese animated films released in China annually. In 2024, Japanese titles comprised 20 of the 93 imported foreign films distributed in China.
Road Pictures will also be hoping to tap into surging interest in animation in general in China in the wake of local animation blockbuster Ne Zha 2‘s staggering $2 billion box office performance since Chinese New Year in late January.
Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginning brings together an all-star creative team for a groundbreaking entry in the Gundam universe. Directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki (FLCL), with a screenplay co-written by anime legends Yoji Enokido (Revolutionary Girl Utena) and Hideaki Anno (Evangelion), Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginning is geared towards both new and old fans of the franchise, according to Road Pictures.
The title’s story is set during a war between Zeon and Earth Federation when a stolen prototype Gundam vanishes. Years later, a girl with mysterious abilities finds herself piloting a new Gundam in underground mech battles while searching for answers about her powers.
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