Southeast Asia’s animators are smashing box office records — and redefining local storytelling

JOHOR/JAKARTA: After seeing reels of the animated film Papa Zola The Movie trending on social media, Singaporean engineer Muhammad Latif Mathan caught it with his two sons in Johor Bahru during the December school holidays.

“My kids usually can’t stop playing with their gadgets, but for this movie they were glued to the (big) screen most of the time,” said Latif, 42, whose sons are aged seven and nine.

The Malaysian movie made the family laugh out loud, he said. “The animation is comparable to what we see in Disney/Pixar films and the dialogue, in colloquial Malay, makes it very relatable.”

The plot also earned his thumbs-up. “The concept of a food delivery man trying to provide for his family is strong, because perhaps it opens (children's) eyes to the sacrifices parents make to put food on the table,” said Latif.

In the movie, Papa Zola taps his forgotten superpowers to save the world when it is attacked by aliens, and his daughter when she is kidnapped by them. 

Propelled by moviegoers like Latif, Papa Zola The Movie has become the highest-grossing animated film in Malaysia, raking in over RM65 million (US$16.6 million) as at end-January.

It dethroned Ejen Ali The Movie 2, a local animated spy-action film also released last year that made over RM59 million and ranks among the top 10 highest-grossing films in Malaysia.

Besides Malaysian filmmakers, Indonesian creators are also having a bumper year at the box office.

In Indonesia, Agak Laen 2: Menyala Pantiku, a comedy about four police officers who face the sack if they fail to solve the murder of a mayor’s son, set a new record for the highest ticket sales by an Indonesian feature film earlier this year. It reportedly sold over 10.5 million tickets in 38 days. 

“Agak laen” is Indonesian slang that roughly means “a little bit different”, and the movie’s title loosely translates to Agak Laen: The Mystery Of The Nursing Home.

It topped Jumbo, a homegrown animation about the adventures of an orphan called Don, which was released last March and sold over 10.2 million tickets. 

Jumbo is Southeast Asia's largest animated feature in terms of revenue, at US$10 million as of Apr 14, 2025, Angga Dwimas Sasongko, founder and group chief executive of Visinema Group, the studio behind the movie, told the South China Morning Post.

That three of the four smash hits – except for Agak Laen 2: Meyala Pantiku – are animated features marks a breakthrough for the industry in both countries, said filmmakers, moviegoers and industry observers.

In Indonesia, the degree of Jumbo’s success came as a surprise to film enthusiasts like Ali Satri Effendi, who said it is relatively uncommon in a domestic market where horror movies dominate the slate of releases.

“It may have been driven by word of mouth, the timing of its release (coinciding with the Lebaran holiday period), and the quality of the film aligning with its audience,” said Ali Satri, a member of the Moviegoers Indonesia community.

Directed by 35-year-old Ryan Adriandhy, Jumbo tells the story of Don, who grapples with a lack of self-confidence due to his large stature. 

After a book filled with magical stories left by his parents gets stolen, Don meets a fairy called Meri who seeks his help in finding her parents, and they set off on an adventure. 

As for Malaysia, filmmakers told CNA the hits are the result of years spent developing characters and stories that resonate with audiences, and support from the government and other stakeholders.

While pleased with the strong showing of homegrown films, they say there is vast potential to grow further through regional collaborations and greater government backing.

DEMAND FOR FAMILY-FRIENDLY CONTENT

“In the past 15 to 20 years, we are seeing this surge of growth in animation in our region,” said Ejen Ali The Movie 2 director Muhammad Usamah Zaid Yasin.

“It’s recently making a breakthrough, but we have been pushing for it. We have been steadily moving towards it,” said Usamah, the chief executive of WAU Animation. He was involved in the hit animated series and franchise Upin & Ipin, which premiered on TV in 2007, early in his career.

Ejen (Agent) Ali began as an animated TV series in 2016 and became popular for its engaging spy narrative, modern animation and local storytelling. 

The first Ejen Ali movie was released in 2019 and became the top-grossing Malaysian film that year, making over RM30 million, and its sequel was released in May 2025. 

Usamah said he initially pitched Ejen Ali as a movie but, given the financial risk, he and his partners settled for a series in order to build a fan base first and “test the market before going to the big screen”.

Usamah said he pitched the series to more than 20 financiers before getting a “yes” from Malaysian media and entertainment conglomerate Media Prima.

The Ejen Ali TV series also received financing from the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, a government agency, which supported the latest movie through its Digital Content Grant.

“I don’t think the current success (would have been) possible without government support. But having said that, in terms of trying to get all these parties to invest, it definitely took a lot of convincing,” Usamah said.

Papa Zola, on the other hand, began life as a side character in director Nizam Razak’s BoBoiBoy television series and franchise, about a young boy with the power to control elements like earth, wind and lightning. The TV series first aired in Malaysia in 2011 and has broadcast in countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and China.

Seeing a demand for animated content for families, Nizam and his team at Monsta Studios looked at their line-up of characters and felt Papa Zola was one they could develop.

There are “not many stories that actually highlight the struggle of fathers”, Nizam said, noting the role of fathers has evolved from the “very strict” figures of previous generations, to being more loving and involved in the household today.

Being a bus driver and delivery rider also helped the hero resonate with audiences in Malaysia and countries such as Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia, where the film has screened, Nizam said.

“I think if you go to Indonesia, Malaysia you can see a lot of these riders, maybe in Vietnam (too). So I think this movie can do really well in Southeast Asia especially, but hopefully also in other markets,” he said. The movie is set to be released in India, Vietnam and the Middle East in April.

It helped that Papa Zola’s character was in step with Nizam’s stage in life as a father of three children aged 12 to 18. “If you asked me to write and direct this maybe 10 years ago, I wouldn’t be able to do it because I didn’t have enough experience as a father,” he said.

Jumbo’s creators, too, sensed a lack of quality content for families and children in Indonesia, said director Ryan.

“We felt there was a need for stories that could be enjoyed by children and families in Indonesia, produced with strong quality, with close attention to narrative and storytelling, while also being rooted in local experiences and carrying universal values,” said Ryan.

Sticking to the standards they had set, Jumbo took five years to produce, he said.

“THIS IS OUR TIME”

Creating characters and movies that reflect their distinct identities but, at the same time, hold international appeal, is a fine balance.

“When you make animation, you need to make sure that it would appeal to the global market, and everyone is trying to figure out what that means,” said Usamah.

When he first pitched Ejen Ali to stakeholders, some felt the name to be too Malaysian, he recalled. “But I felt this strong sense of identity there,” he said.

“To put it in very simple terms, if I make another show like Transformers, for example, it’s just going to drown (amidst) all the other transforming robot shows,” he said. 

“We need to make it apparent that this is not like something from Hollywood or just another international animation.”

Usamah drew inspiration from everyday encounters such as a lunch outing to a burger bakar (grilled burger) stall with his collaborators. 

One of his partners imagined the burger seller as an undercover agent who uses code words, and this became part of the plot for the Ejen Ali TV series’ pilot episode. Ali orders nasi lemak at a stall and inadvertently utters the words “tempoyak udang” (shrimp cooked in durian paste), the code for retrieving a special device.

Just as Japanese animators are “not shy about putting forth their sushi, their samurai swords”, the infusion of local elements is “something we aspire to do as people from our side of the world”, Usamah said.

Agreeing, Nizam said: “We have our own stories, but previously, we let other people make our stories for us.

“Now, it’s different. We have the technology, we have the market size … I think this is our time.”

Woven into the stories are universal narratives.

For instance, “a loser kid at school suddenly thrown into a world where there’s so much expected of him”, friendships and the quest for deeper connection with one’s parents, as Usamah put it.

For Jumbo, Ryan said there was no specific strategy other than the desire to create a story with a local setting that showcases local values as well as universal ones. 

“I believe when a story is honest and has emotional resonance … geographical boundaries disappear,” said Ryan, whose film has reportedly secured distribution in 40 countries.

Films such as Pixar’s Coco and Disney’s Moana have universal appeal but also “talk deeply about culture and local characteristics”, he pointed out.

“When we deal with longing for parents who are no longer around, childhood friends and dreams of being recognised … those are feelings not only experienced by Indonesian children. We share the same dreams and stories.”

Animation transcends certain barriers, said Malaysian filmmaker and animator Jared Lee. In movies with real actors, he said, “people are a bit biased, whether it’s (due to) language, the way the characters look, what race are the characters”.

With animation, racial boundaries grow fainter, he said. What’s more, different languages can be easily dubbed using voice actors.

“It’s really easy to market it again. If the title Papa Zola doesn’t work in a certain country, you can just change it up,” said Lee of the production house The Grim Film. His short film Horologist won Best Animation in 2023 at the San Diego Comic-Con.

“CREATIVITY, QUALITY FIRST; GLOBAL RECOGNITION WILL FOLLOW”

Even with triumphant runs at the box office, filmmakers and observers say more can be done to strengthen the film and animation industries of their respective countries, as well as the region.

In Indonesia, film enthusiast Ali Satri said a handful of blockbuster titles do not necessarily represent conditions across the industry. 

The performance of homegrown films released in cinemas – a total of 201 Indonesian films in 2025 – is uneven, he said. “Many films that were predicted and hoped to reach one million viewers ended up not performing.”

For instance, Pangku (whose English title is On Your Lap), the directorial debut of actor Reza Rahadian, drew about 500,000 viewers despite being critically acclaimed.

The drama, about a single mother who works at a kopi pangku stall – a coffee shop where women servers offer companionship and sit on the laps of male customers – won Best Film at the 2025 Indonesian Film Festival, the most prestigious film award in the country. It also picked up four awards at the 2025 Busan Film Festival in South Korea.

“Indonesia still struggles with heavier themes, with themes that make people think,” noted Yuananto Tri Wijaya, who frequently posts film reviews on social media platform X and has more than 78,000 followers.

Film researcher Hikmat Darmawan said with cinema admissions for two homegrown films making up a quarter of the more than 80 million recorded in Indonesia in 2025, it raises the question: What does a healthy industry look like?

In Indonesia, a film’s quality is only discussed after it crosses a certain viewership threshold, he said. But some releases suffer from a lack of marketing. 

A movie’s fate is also heavily influenced by the number of screens and screening slots it gets from the first day of release, he said.

The first four days are crucial and if the film’s cinema occupancy rate is deemed low, “it can be dropped from screens immediately”, Hikmat said.

While the cinema industry in Indonesia is faring better than some other countries like Singapore, the number of screens has decreased over the years.

From around 6,600 cinema screens in the 1980s, the figure decreased to about 2,145 screens in about 517 locations, based on February 2024 data from the Indonesian Film Board, Hikmat noted.

Many cinema screens in Indonesia are concentrated in major cities and shopping malls, resulting in uneven access for audiences, he added.

To boost the industry, the government should offer incentives to grow audiences in second- and third-tier cities, and could tweak cinema screening regulations to give films more time to survive – perhaps, stipulating a minimum of 10 days on screen, Hikmat suggested.

Director Ryan said the Indonesian government helped to enable Jumbo’s success by appreciating it as “a piece of intellectual property”, not merely a film. It supported the installation of a 10m-tall inflatable Don, the movie’s hero, at several locations across Jakarta, as well as at various airports.

The authorities were also involved in organising screenings of Jumbo for various communities, Ryan said.

In Malaysia, Nizam suggested a lower entertainment tax or federal rebates to improve the chances for film producers to turn a profit.

The Film In Malaysia Incentive, which offers a 30 per cent cash rebate on all qualifying Malaysian production expenditure, could also set aside a quota for local producers, he proposed.

At the regional level, governments could forge agreements to “open more markets” for filmmakers, Nizam said. This would make it easier for filmmakers to get investors on board.

“Hopefully there’ll be more government-to-government treaties (between) Malaysia, Indonesia, maybe Singapore,” he said. “Rather than just being a consumer market, we need to also be a creators’ market, and we need to help each other.”

Media studies expert Tengku Elena Tengku Mahamad, an associate professor at Malaysia’s Universiti Teknologi MARA, said support for the animation industry should go beyond funding individual projects. 

There should be investment in “ecosystems” such as talent development, storytelling, incubation, mentorship and clear pathways between education and industry.

“High quality animation is labour-intensive, and when creators are given adequate resources and time, the results speak for themselves,” she said.

The government and other stakeholders can help by supporting international festival participation, cross-border collaborations and stronger distribution opportunities, she said.

Creators need space to experiment and take risks, Tengku Elena added. 

“Not every project will succeed immediately, but meaningful stories often come from that freedom to explore. When creativity and quality are nurtured consistently, global recognition will follow,” she said.