| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a cinematic compendium of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. One Small World, Two Big Box Offices | The Oscar awards take place this weekend, so it's worth looking at the movie that's devoured the global box office the last month. That would be Ne Zha 2, which has become the highest-grossing animated motion picture of all time, overtaking Frozen 2, The Lion King and Inside Out 2. Its momentum may take it into the $2 billion range, and it could displace Star Wars: The Force Awakens from fifth place in the top ranks of global box office giants. Among the superlatives being bandied about is that it is the highest-grossing non-English language film of all time, and it will achieve this almost entirely out of a single movie market: China. Which is part of the problem. The film has a powerful emotional core — as do many animated films out of Hollywood. It's about a supernatural child fated to die in three years but who fights against his fate, buoyed by the love of his mother. But it isn't getting the traction it needs in the other big global market, the US. The reason why is probably more than just because the movie has subtitles or that the character has its origins in a 16th-century novel. Perhaps it reflects a deeper animus about things Chinese, despite the recent inroads of the Chinese social media platform RedNote and the video game Black Myth: Wukong. Nevertheless, the movie — together with the worldwide impact of the DeepSeek AI model — is a source of great national pride in China. There is evidence that widespread popularity and success can be achieved by people who aren't from the country's privileged 1%, as Shuli Ren says in a recent column. DeepSeek's founder, Liang Wenfeng, didn't attend prestigious universities like Tsinghua in Beijing or Fudan in Shanghai, but a middle-ranked university in Zhejiang province. Meanwhile, Yang Yu, the movie's director (also known as Jiaozi), studied to be a pharmacist but became a self-taught animator who, when he felt he was being dissed by overseas animation shops, completed his project back in China. Shuli says that Liang and Yang may be more important for China's internal self-esteem. That's something Xi Jinping's government has been remiss about promoting. "DeepSeek and Ne Zha are just what the Chinese need right now." As for the US, how many more Captain America sequels do we need? The US Goes to War with … Japan? | Speaking of Captain America, Gearoid Reidy takes on the latest movie iteration of the comic book hero and the movie plot point of the US on the brink of war with Japan. But, you say, isn't Tokyo one of Washington's most ardent allies? And wouldn't any interest in a world-changing alloy (the fictional adamantium) have been settled by a more negotiated kind of sharing between friends? Gearoid suggests that Japan is a stand-in for China, where potential anger at being portrayed as the enemy might impinge on the possible mainland box office. Says Gearoid: "How far along did the script progress before an executive realized that, for all its geopolitical intrigue, Chinese audiences might react unfavorably to being portrayed as having designs on ocean commodities it doesn't own? Given that a patriotically sensitive box office is essential for a Hollywood movie's success these days, replacing China with Japan, whose audience won't mind the depiction despite how unlikely its involvement might seem, starts to make some sense." Hollywood has never needed subtitles when it comes to money. "[Germany's chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich] Merz is doubling down on his call for for defense 'independence' from the US — the kind of talk associated with French leaders stretching back to Charles de Gaulle. He's opened discussions with his Social Democrat partners to approve as much as €200 billion ($210 billion) in special spending. … Merz's dramatic warning that it's 'five minutes to midnight' also keeps open the possibility he could declare a spending emergency, another route to busting constitutional debt limits." — Lionel Laurent in "Even Germany Is Gaullist Now. Well Done, Trump."
 "When we raised the possibility of a breakup of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE a year ago, it was more of a PowerPoint idea. Now, cleaving apart the world's biggest luxury group has moved off the drawing board and into investor discussions. An extended debate about the best way to achieve a split continues. Whichever method is chosen, it would deliver more than LVMH's current enterprise value of just under €360 billion ($377 billion). If the company wasn't controlled by the Arnault family, the owner of Louis Vuitton and Dior would be irresistible to an activist investor. Indeed, the biggest question remains whether Chief Executive Officer Bernard Arnault would take an ax to his empire." Andrea Felsted in "LVMH Breakup Goes From 'Why?' to 'Why Not?'" The bond market gets schooled. — Chris Hughes Whose afraid of a cobalt shortage? — David Fickling BP squanders a chance to win investors. — Javier Blas Germany's green wave hasn't been stilled. — Lara Williams How much will independence cost for Merz? — Chris Bryant Apple's shortsighted privacy fight. — Parmy Olson Home ownership in Hong Kong needs a rethink. — Andy Mukherjee Be bold, South Korea! — Daniel Moss And Warren Buffett's true successor is ... — Marc Rubinstein Is US deposit insurance in danger? — Paul J. Davies Walk of the Town: The Sky Isn't Falling … For Now | I was crossing Southwark Bridge here in London when I looked up into the early evening sky to see a dazzling white object shining in the darkness. It wasn't a plane. And since it didn't twinkle, I knew (from decades-old science lessons) it wasn't a star. It was the planet Venus. This — and all the recent talk of disorderly behavior by heavenly bodies — set off a cosmic line of thought as I headed for dinner. Fortunately, the consternation from a few weeks ago about the potential Dec. 22, 2032 impact of Asteroid 2024 YR4 on Earth has diminished greatly — falling from odds as high as 3.1% to less than 1%, as F.D. Flam notes in her recent column. At one point, prognosticators were even speculating that Lagos, Bogota and Mumbai were most at risk of being smacked by the 50-meter-wide space rock. It wouldn't have been the first time an asteroid devastated the Earth. About 66 million years ago, the dinosaurs (and many other species) were extinguished when a six-mile wide interstellar projectile made impact in what is now the Yucatan peninsula, creating what is called the Chicxulub crater. Within human memory, vast forests across an 830 sq. mile area were knocked down by something that vaporized in the atmosphere in what's called the Tunguska Event of 1908. The extent of the damage was larger than Greater London and almost three times the land area of New York City.  Heads up! Photo Illustration by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg The sight of Venus on Wednesday night reminded me of a furor that consumed the scientific community back in the 1970s. It was over the catastrophist ideas of Immanuel Velikovsky — who attempted to synchronize ancient histories with planetary events in a bestselling book called Worlds in Collision (even though there weren't really any bang-ups with the Earth in the text). One of his more spectacular contentions is that — within human memory — Venus was birthed from the planet Jupiter, causing havoc in the solar system and deeply affecting human history and mythology. Velikovsky's visions would have been epic as a Hollywood blockbuster — however, its actual science was preposterous. Still, the astrophysical gyrations make you think: There are more things in heaven than on Earth that can be elicited from a quiet walk across a bridge beneath a sky bejeweled by the planet of the goddess of love. I'm not hating on Captain America. I even tried out the role at Tokyo Comic Con last year.  "I can do this all day." Photograph from Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Notes: Please send animated convictions and feedback to Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and find us on Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and Threads. | 
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